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MY  CHINESE, 
MARRIAGE 


BY 

M.  T.  F. 


New  York 

DUFFIELD  AND  COMPANY 

1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
ASIA  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


TO  MY  CHINESE  FATHER  AND  MOTHER 
WITH  THE  GRATITUDE  AND  AFFECTION 
OF  THEIR  AMERICAN  DAUGHTER  THIS 
VOLUME  IS  DEDICATED 


296064 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

I.  In  America .  3 

II.  In  Shanghai . 45 

III.  First  Daughter-in-Law . 89 

IV.  The  Eternal  Hills . 131 


236064 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


i 

IN  AMERICA 

I  saw  Chan-King  Liang  for  the  first  time  on 
a  certain  Monday  morning  in  October.  It  was 
the  opening  day  of  college,  and  the  preceding 
week  had  been  filled  with  the  excitement  inci¬ 
dental  to  the  arrival  of  many  students  in  a  small 
town  given  over  to  family  life.  Every  house¬ 
hold  possessed  of  a  spare  room  was  impressed 
with  the  fact  that  good  citizenship  demanded 
that  it  harbor  a  student.  Therefore,  when  I  saw 
trunks  and  boxes  and  bags  being  tumbled  upon 
the  front  porch  of  our  next-door  neighbor,  I  said 
to  Mother,  “Mrs.  James  has  succumbed!”  and 
set  out  for  my  first  class  with  Celia,  an  old  friend. 

As  we  crossed  the  campus,  we  noticed  a  group 

of  boys,  gathered  on  the  steps  of  College  Hall 

3 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

and  talking  among  themselves.  Celia  turned  to 
me.  “Do  you  see  the  one  with  very  black  hair, 
his  face  turned  away  a  little — the  one  in  the 
gray  suit,  Margaret4? — Well,  that  is  the  new  Chi¬ 
nese  student,  and  the  boys  all  say  he  is  a  wonder. 
My  cousin  knew  him  last  year  in  Chicago,  where 
he  was  a  freshman.  Going  in  for  international 
law  and  political  science — imagine!” 

I  turned  and  glanced  with  a  faint  interest  at 
the  foreign  student,  on  whose  black  hair  the  sun 
was  shining.  My  first  impression  was  of  a  very 
young,  smiling  lad.  “Looks  well  enough,”  I 
said,  rather  ungraciously,  and  we  passed  on. 

I  was  a  busy  student,  eagerly  beginning  my 
freshman  year’s  work,  and  I  thought  no  more  of 
the  young  Chinese.  But  a  day  or  so  later  I  dis¬ 
covered  him  to  be  the  owner  of  those  trunks  and 
bags  I  had  seen  assembled  on  Mrs.  James’s  porch. 
Chan-King  was  my  next-door  neighbor. 

We  were  never  introduced  to  each  other,  as  it 
happened,  and,  though  we  shared  studies  in  Ger¬ 
man  and  French,  we  did  not  exchange  a  word 

4 


IN  AMERICA 


for  some  time.  Later  I  found  myself  admiring 
his  feat  of  learning  two  foreign  languages 
through  the  medium  of  English,  a  third,  and  do¬ 
ing  it  so  very  well.  At  the  same  time,  though  I 
was  not  then  aware  of  the  fact,  he  was  also  ad¬ 
miring  me  for  proficiency  in  these  subjects,  in 
which  I  was  working  hard,  because  I  intended  to 
teach  languages. 

The  progress  of  my  interest  in  him  was  grad¬ 
ual  and  founded  on  a  sense  of  his  complete  re¬ 
moteness,  an  utter  failure  to  regard  him  as  a 
human  being  like  the  rest  of  us.  He  was  the  first 
of  his  race  I  had  ever  seen.  But  finally  we  spoke 
to  one  another  by  some  chance,  and,  after  that,  it 
seemed  unnecessary  to  refuse  to  walk  to  class 
with  him  on  a  certain  morning  when  we  came 
out  of  our  houses  at  the  same  moment. 

We  parted  at  College  Hall  door  with  an  ex¬ 
change  of  informal  little  nods.  I  was  happily 
impressed,  but  my  impulse  to  friendship  suffered 
a  quick  reaction  from  all  that  Chan-King  was, 

when  viewed  against  the  background  of  his  race 

5 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

as  I  saw  it.  I  had  no  intention  whatever  of  con- 
tinuing  our  association. 

Naturally,  Chan-King  knew  nothing  of  this. 
I  think  I  was  probably  a  trifle  more  courteous  to 
him  than  was  necessary.  I  remember  being  un¬ 
easy  for  fear  of  wounding  him  by  some  thought¬ 
less  remark  that  would  reveal  my  true  state  of 
mind  about  China.  I  lost  sight  of  the  race  in  the 
individual.  I  even  pretended  not  to  notice  that 
he  was  waiting  for  me  morning  after  morning 
when  I  emerged,  always  a  trifle  late,  hurrying  to 
classes.  By  the  close  of  the  first  semester,  we 
were  making  the  trip  together  almost  daily  as  a 
matter  of  course. 

He  was  gay  and  friendly,  with  a  sort  of  frank 
joyousness  that  was  his  own  special  endowment 
for  living.  I  enjoyed  his  companionship,  his 
talk,  his  splendid  spirit.  His  cheerfulness  was 
a  continual  stimulant  to  my  moody,  introspec¬ 
tive,  static  temperament.  I  used  to  study  his 
face,  which  in  repose  had  the  true  oriental  im¬ 
passivity — a  stillness  that  suggested  an  inner 

6 


IN  AMERICA 

silence  or  brooding.  But  this  mood  was  rare  in 
those  days,  and  I  remember  best  his  laughter,  his 
shining  eyes  that  never  missed  the  merriment  to 
be  had  from  the  day’s  routine  events. 

For  a  while  we  were  merely  two  very  conven¬ 
tional  young  students  walking  sedately  together, 
talking  with  eagerness  on  what  now  seem  amus¬ 
ingly  sober  and  carefully  chosen  subjects.  We 
were  both  determined  to  be  dignified  and  imper¬ 
sonal.  I  was  nineteen,  and  Chan-King  was  two 
years  older. 

Finally,  Chan-King  asked  to  call  and  he  ap¬ 
peared  at  the  door  that  evening,  laden  with  an 
enormous,  irregular  package,  a  collection  of 
treasures  that  he  thought  might  interest  us.  We 
all  gathered  about  the  library  table,  where  he 
spread  a  flaming  array  of  embroidered  silks, 
carved  ivory  and  sandalwood  and  curious  little 
images  in  bronze  and  blackwood.  They  gave 
out  a  delicious  fragrance,  spicy  and  warm  and 
sweet,  with  a  bitter  tang  to  it,  a  mingling  of  oils 

and  lacquers  and  dust  of  incense. 

7 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

He  was  very  proud  of  half  a  dozen  neckties 
his  mother  had  made  him,  patterned  carefully 
after  the  American  one  he  had  sent  her  as  a  souve¬ 
nir.  “She  sews  a  great  deal,  and  everything  she 
does  is  beautiful,”  he  said,  stroking  one  of  the 
ties,  fashioned  of  wine-colored  silk  and  embroid¬ 
ered  in  a  thin  gold  thread. 

The  simple  words,  the  tangle  of  the  exotic 
things  lying  on  the  table,  in  that  moment  set  the 
whole  world  between  us.  I  saw  him  as  alien,  far 
removed  and  unknowable;  I  realized  how  utterly 
transplanted  he  must  be,  moving  as  he  did  in  a 
country  whose  ideals,  manners  and  customs  must 
appear,  at  times,  grotesquely  fantastic  to  him. 
“How  queer  we  must  seem  to  you !”  I  exclaimed, 
impulsively,  lifting  a  solid,  fat  little  idol  in  my 
hand. 

“Queer  *?  Not  at  all — but  wonderfully  inter¬ 
esting  in  everything.  You  see,  to  me  it  is  all 
one  world!”  Our  eyes  met  for  a  second.  Then 
he  offered  me  a  small  embroidered  Chinese  flag. 

I  hesitated,  looking  at  the  writhing,  fire-breath- 

8 


IN  AMERICA 

ing  dragon  done  in  many-colored  silks.  Again 
the  old  prejudice  swept  over  me.  I  was  about 
to  refuse.  But  I  saw  in  his  eyes  an  expression 
of  hesitating,  half-anxious  pleading,  which 
touched  me.  I  took  the  flag,  puzzled  a  trifle  over 
that  look  I  had  surprised. 

Chan-King  became  a  frequent  visitor  at  our 

home  in  the  evenings,  making  friends  with  my 

father  and  mother,  with  true  Chinese  deference. 

I  like  to  remember  those  times,  with  all  of  us 

sitting  around  the  big  table,  the  shaded  lamp 

casting  a  clear  circle  of  light  on  the  books  and 

papers,  the  rest  of  the  room  in  pleasant  dimness. 

It  was  during  these  evenings  that  Chan-King 

told  us  about  his  father,  typical  Chinese  product 

of  his  clan  and  time,  who  had  early  perceived  the 

limitations  of  a  too  nationalistic  point  of  view 

and  had  planned  western  education  for  his  sons, 

of  whom  Chan-King  was  the  eldest.  From  his 

talk  I  reconstructed  a  half-picture  of  his  home  in 

southern  China.  It  was  a  large  household  of 

brothers  and  relatives  and  servants  ruled  over 

9 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

by  his  mother  during  the  prolonged  absences  of 
his  father,  whose  business  interests  lay  in  a  far¬ 
away  island  port. 

Once  he  brought  a  faded  photograph  of  a  small 
boy  formally  arrayed  in  the  Chinese  velvets  and 
satins  of  an  earlier  period.  “Myself  at  the  age 
of  six,”  he  explained. 

I  examined  the  picture  closely.  “Why,  Mr. 
Liang,”  I  said,  in  wonder,  “you  are  wearing  a — 
wearing  a — queue!” 

He  smiled,  delighted  at  my  confusion.  “Yes, 
a  very  nice  queue  it  was,”  he  declared,  “bound 
with  a  scarlet  silk  cord.  I  remember  how  it 
waved  in  the  wind  when  I  flew  my  kite  on  the 
hills!” 

“You  wore  a  black  queue  yourself,  Margaret,” 
interposed  my  mother,  her  eyes  twinkling, 
“shorter  than  this,  but  often  tied  with  a  red  silk 
ribbon.” 

“You  see,  we  had  that  in  common,  at  least,” 

said  Chan-King.  And  he  flashed  a  grateful  smile 

at  mother.  There  was  a  well-established  friend- 

10 


IN  AMERICA 


ship  between  my  kindly,  understanding  mother 
and  Chan-King  while  my  feeling  for  him  was 
still  uncertain. 

Yet  in  spite  of  all  these  reasons  for  close  sym¬ 
pathy  with  Chan-King,  I  felt  toward  him  at  times 
something  amounting  almost  to  dislike.  Against 
such  states  of  mind  my  sense  of  personal  justice, 
a  trait  I  had  directly  from  my  Scotch  inheritance, 
instantly  rebelled.  I  was  careful  in  no  way  to 
reveal  my  feelings,  though  I  probably  should 
have  done  so  had  I  even  remotely  realized  that 
friendship  was  verging  upon  love.  As  it  was,  I 
had  an  ideal  of  genuine  comradeship,  of  a  pleas¬ 
ant  interlude  destined  to  end  with  our  college 
days. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  winter,  as  our  acquaint¬ 
ance  advanced,  there  came  to  me  a  series  of  those 
revulsions.  I  assured  myself  that  so  ephemeral 
a  relation  as  ours  must  be  was  hardly  worth  the 
time  I  was  giving  to  it.  I  remembered  that,  fine 
as  Chan-King  was,  he  belonged  to  the  Chinese 

race.  I  decided  to  put  an  end  to  the  entire  epi- 

ll 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 
sode  at  once.  The  way  in  which  I  carried  out 
this  plan  was  unnecessarily  abrupt.  I  avoided 
him,  unmistakably,  going  to  class  and  returning 
home  by  a  roundabout  way,  and  refusing  to  see 
him  either  in  class  or  on  the  campus. 

Then,  one  afternoon  at  the  end  of  two  weeks, 
he  was  waiting  for  me  before  the  main  door  of 
College  Hall.  I  did  not  speak.  He  joined  me 
without  a  word  and  walked  in  silence  to  the  cam¬ 
pus  edge.  I  turned  suddenly  toward  a  side 
street.  “Go  that  way  if  you  like,”  I  said,  rudely. 
“I  have  an  errand  this  way.” 

He  came  with  me.  “I  wish  to  talk  with  you,” 
he  said,  with  an  oddly  restrained,  patient  tone 
of  weariness.  Our  eyes  met,  and  I  saw  in  his  a 
gentle  and  touching  determination  to  under¬ 
stand  and  be  understood,  which  would  have  been 
more  significant  to  me  if  I  had  been  less  engrossed 
in  my  own  emotions. 

“Why  do  you  wish  to  end  our  friendship4?” 
he  asked,  quietly,  with  his  characteristic  frank¬ 


ness. 


12 


IN  AMERICA 


“I — because  I  thought  it  was  best/’  I  stam¬ 
mered,  completely  disarmed. 

“It  is  never  best  to  give  up  a  friendship,”  he 
said.  “But  it  happens  that  our  friendship  may 
end  soon  after  all.  It  is  possible  I  shall  return 
to  China.  To-day  I  received  a  cablegram  from 
my  father,  saying  my  mother  is  dangerously  ill. 
I  shall  know  within  a  day  or  so  whether  I  am  to 
go  or  to  stay.” 

Human  sympathy  triumphed  over  race  preju¬ 
dice.  “Come  home  with  me,”  I  said,  “and  let 
mother  talk  to  you.  She  always  knows  what  to 
say. 

Another  cablegram  two  days  later  brought  the 

good  news  of  his  mother’s  improvement.  Chan- 

King’s  anxiety  during  those  two  days  wrung  me. 

He  said  nothing,  but  his  face  was  strained  and 

lined.  He  walked  and  we  talked  a  good  deal  of 

other  things,  and  he  gave  me  definite  outlines  of 

his  “life-plan,”  as  he  called  it.  He  regarded  the 

diplomatic  service  of  his  country  as  his  final  goal, 

but,  on  the  way  to  it,  he  wished  to  take  part  in 

13 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

constructive  teaching  and  sociological  work  in 
China.  He  was  keenly  enthusiastic  about  the 
ancient  arts  and  natural  beauties  of  China  and 
venerated  many  of  her  old  customs.  “I  hope  in¬ 
troducing  modern  education  will  not  destroy  the 
beauty  of  the  East,”  he  told  me,  but  he  was  sol¬ 
idly  convinced  of  the  need  for  new  ideas  in  all 
the  Orient.  I  began  to  see  his  country  through 
new  eyes. 

We  were  soon  going  about  together  a  great 
deal.  I  remember  many  happy  parties  on  the 
lantern-lighted  campus,  many  field-days  and  ten¬ 
nis  matches,  all  the  innocent  freedom  of  college 
life  that  we  enjoyed  together.  I  was  rather  re¬ 
mote  in  my  personal  friendships,  and  very  little 
was  said  to  me  regarding  my  association  with  the 
Chinese  student.  But  now  I  began  to  hear  small 
murmurs,  a  vague  hum  of  discussion,  and  to  ob¬ 
serve  an  interested  watching  of  us  by  the  stu¬ 
dents  and  townspeople.  I  could  not  help  seeing 
that  curious  glances  followed  us  when  we  en¬ 
tered  a  tea-room  or  concert  hall  together. 

14 


IN  AMERICA 


Several  friends  of  my  mother’s  spoke  disap¬ 
provingly  to  her  of  the  matter.  “What  if  they 
should  fall  in  love — marry4?”  asked  one  conven¬ 
tional-minded  old  lady.  But  my  mother  was 
born  without  prejudices  and  never  sees  boundary 
lines  or  nationalities.  She  was  infinitely  tact¬ 
ful  and  kind.  I  know  now  that  she  was  rather 
uneasy,  for  she  felt  that  marriage  is  a  difficult 
enough  relation  when  each  person  knows  the  oth¬ 
er’s  heritage  and  formulas;  but  she  said  nothing 
to  make  me  self-conscious,  not  even  repeating  the 
remarks  of  her  acquaintances  until  long  after¬ 
ward. 

However,  I  heard  comments  from  other 
sources,  which  irritated  me  a  trifle  and  had  the 
perfectly  natural  effect  of  stimulating  my  loyalty 
to  Chan-King  and  arousing  at  times  a  yearning 
tenderness  to  shield  him  from  injustice.  At  this 
time  we  tentatively  expressed  our  views  on  inter¬ 
marriage.  We  were  sitting  on  the  porch  late  one 
afternoon.  “I  believe  marriage  between  alien 

races  is  a  mistake,”  I  said,  in  the  decisive  way  I 

15 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


cultivated  at  that  time.  It  is  better  to  marry  one’s 
own  kind.” 

“No  doubt  there  are  fewer  difficulties,”  he  an¬ 
swered,  without  conviction.  “It  is  all  so  much 
a  personal  problem.  Marriages  between  Ameri¬ 
cans  do  not  seem  to  be  always  successful.” 

I  flared.  “We  hear  only  of  the  unhappy  ones,” 
I  retorted. 

“But  there  are  many,  many  unhappy  ones, 
then,”  he  returned  gently.  “I  wonder  if  un- 
happy  marriage  in  all  countries  is  not  due  to  sel¬ 
fishness  and  lack  of  love  and  to  unwillingness  to 
compromise  on  unimportant  differences.” 

We  could  not  possibly  quarrel  here,  and  our 
talk  proceeded  amiably. 

My  thoughts  at  dinner  that  night  seem  very 
amusing  to  me  as  I  recall  them  now.  Chan-King 
was  so  like  one  of  us,  as  we  sat  at  table  together, 
that  I  found  myself  wondering  if  it  was  true  that 
a  Chinese  wife  did  not  eat  at  the  same  table  with 
her  husband;  if  she  actually  did  wait  upon  him 

and  obey  him  without  question  in  everything; 

16 


IN  AMERICA 

if  Chan-King  would  return  to  China  soon  and 
there  become  an  insufferable,  autocratic  eastern 
husband.  The  thought  oppressed  me  unbear¬ 
ably.  Since  Chan-King  was  leaving  next  day  on 
a  summer-vacation  trip,  this  was  a  farewell  din¬ 
ner.  He  insisted  on  helping  me  with  the  dishes 
afterward,  for  ours  was  a  simple  household,  and 
we  usually  had  no  maid.  We  were  very  merry 
over  the  task.  “In  China,”  he  confided,  as  he 
stacked  the  saucers,  “the  lot  of  women  is  much 
easier.  They  have  servants  for  everything  of 
this  kind.  I  know  an  Englishwoman  who  mar¬ 
ried  a  Chinese,  and  she  afterward  taught  in  a 
college  for  the  sake  of  something  to  do.” 

“She  did  quite  right,”  I  said.  “Idleness  is  not 
good  for  any  one.” 

“Chinese  wives  are  not  idle,”  he  answered, 
gravely;  “they  have  many  duties  for  everyone  in 
their  household.” 

At  this  he  turned  his  eyes  upon  me,  with  an  in¬ 
tent,  inner  look.  Because  I  was  impressed,  I 
chose  to  be  flippant. 


17 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

“If  I  obstruct  your  view,  I  will  move,”  I  said. 

“It  would  do  no  good,”  he  answered.  “You 
are  always  there — wherever  I  want  to  look.” 

Later  he  was  writing  his  name  in  Chinese  char¬ 
acters  on  a  photograph  he  had  given  my  mother. 
I  stood  beside  him.  He  dropped  the  pen,  turned 
to  me  and  took  both  my  hands  in  his  own.  He 
bent  toward  me,  and  I  drew  away,  shaking  my 
head  decisively.  I  wrenched  one  hand  free,  and 
the  kiss  he  meant  for  my  lips  reached  my  fingers 
instead.  I  was  overwhelmed  with  a  sense  of  in¬ 
vasion.  We  quarreled,  but  without  bitterness 
or  real  anger.  I  was  simply  convinced  that,  since 
love  was  not  for  us,  we  were  bound  by  all  ethics 
to  keep  our  relations  in  the  outward  seeming  of 
friendship.  For  a  moment  I  felt  that  one  of  my 
ideals  had  been  rudely  shattered. 

“Oh,  but  you  have  mistaken  me!”  he  declared, 
earnestly,  refusing  to  release  my  hand. 

“Kisses  are  not  for  friendship,”  I  managed  to 
say. 

“I’m  sorry,”  he  confessed,  but  I  saw  in  his  eyes 

18 


IN  AMERICA 

that  he  regretted  my  misunderstanding  of  him, 
nothing  more. 

During  his  summer  travels  he  wrote  me  many 
letters.  I  had  time  to  think,  and  in  my  thoughts 
I  admitted  that  to  be  a  friend  to  Chan-King  was 
better  than  to  have  the  love  of  any  one  else  in  the 
world. 

When  he  returned,  we  wandered  together  one 
evening  down  to  the  campus  and  sat  on  a  stone 
bench  in  the  moon-shade  of  a  tall  tree.  I  had 
overheard  a  remark,  tinged  with  race  prejudice, 
that  had  awakened  again  in  my  heart  that  brood¬ 
ing  maternal  tenderness,  and  when  Chan-King’s 
eyes  pleaded  wistfully,  I  gave  him,  as  a  sacrificial 
offering,  the  kiss  before  denied. 

That  fall  he  transferred  for  a  year  to  a  New 
England  university.  He  told  me  long  after¬ 
ward  it  was  so  that  absence  might  teach  me  to 
know  my  own  heart.  I  loved  him  now  and  ad¬ 
mitted  it  to  myself  with  bitter  honesty.  But  all 
fulfilment  of  love  seemed  so  hopeless  and  re¬ 
mote,  the  chasm  fixed  between  our  races  seemed 

19 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

so  impassable,  that  I  gave  up  in  my  heart  and  put 
away  his  letters  as  they  came,  smiling  with  af¬ 
fected  youthful  cynicism  at  the  memory  of  that 
kiss,  which  could  mean  nothing  more  to  us  than 
a  sweet  and  troubled  recollection. 

He  came  back  unexpectedly  at  the  end  of  the 
college  term.  There  was  an  indescribably  hope¬ 
ful,  anxious  look  in  his  eyes  as  he  took  my  hands. 
My  first  sight  of  his  face,  grown  older  and  graver 
in  those  long  months,  brought  a  shock  of  poig¬ 
nant  happiness,  very  near  to  tears.  Off  guard, 
we  met  as  lovers,  with  all  antagonisms  momen¬ 
tarily  swept  away,  all  pretenses  forgotten.  I 
went  to  his  arms  as  my  one  sure  haven.  For  this 
hour  love  made  everything  simple  and  happy. 

My  father  and  mother  were  astonished  when 
we  told  them  of  our  intention  to  marry.  With 
gentle  wisdom,  mother  suggested  that  we  allow 
ourselves  a  year  of  engagement,  “in  order  to  be 
sure,”  as  she  expressed  it.  We  were  very  sure 
but  we  consented. 

Chan-King  wrote  at  once  to  his  people  in  south 

20 


IN  AMERICA 


China,  telling  of  his  engagement.  For  me,  he 
had  one  important  explanation,  made  in  his 
frank,  straightforward  way.  “In  China,”  he  told 
me,  “it  is  usual  for  parents  to  arrange  their  chil¬ 
dren’s  marriages,  often  years  in  advance.  When 
I  was  very  young,  it  was  generally  understood 
that  I  would  later  marry  the  daughter  of  my 
father’s  good  friend,  three  years  younger  than  I. 
There  was  no  formal  betrothal,  and,  when  I  left 
home  to  study,  I  asked  my  father  not  to  make  any 
definite  plans  for  my  marriage  until  my  return. 
The  subject  has  never  been  mentioned  since,  and 
I  don’t  know- what  his  ideas  are  now.  But  they 
can  make  no  difference  with  us — you  understand 
that,  Margaret,  dear?”  Again  I  felt  myself  in 
spiritual  collision  with  unknown  forces  and  won¬ 
dered  at  his  calmness  in  opposing  the  claims  of 
his  heredity. 

His  family  replied  to  his  letter  with  a  cable 
gram,  forbidding  the  marriage.  I  had  never  se¬ 
riously  expected  any  other  decision.  A  letter 

followed,  conciliatory  in  tone,  in  which  his 

21 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

father  explained  that  since  Chan-King's  foreign 
education  was  nearly  completed,  arrangements 
had  been  made  for  his  marriage  to  Miss  Li-Ying 
immediately  upon  his  return  home.  He  gave  a 
charming  description  of  his  bride,  whom  Chan- 
King  had  not  seen  for  twelve  years.  She  was, 
he  said,  young  and  modest  and  kind,  she  was 
beautiful  and  wealthv,  and  moreover  had  been 
given  a  modern  education  in  order  to  fit  her  for 
the  position  of  wife  to  an  advanced  Chinese. 
The  match  was  greatly  desired  by  both  families. 
In  conclusion,  the  letter  urgently  requested  that 
Chan-King  would  not  make  it  impossible  for  his 
father  to  fulfil  the  contract  he  had  entered  into 
with  a  friend,  and  very  gently  intimated  that  by 
so  doing  he  would  forfeit  all  right  to  further  con¬ 
sideration. 

There  were  other  letters.  An  American  friend, 
a  missionary,  wrote — oh,  very  tactfully — of  the 
difficulties  he  would  have  in  keeping  an  Ameri¬ 
can  wife  happy  in  the  Orient.  A  Chinese  cousin 

discussed  at  length  the  sorrows  a  foreign  daugh- 

22 


IN  AMERICA 

ter-in-law  would  bring  into  his  house — the  bitter¬ 
ness  of  having  in  the  family  an  alien  and 
stubborn  woman,  who  would  be  unwilling  to 
give  his  parents  the  honor  due  them  or  to  render 
them  the  service  they  would  expect  of  their  son’s 
wife. 

Many  letters  of  this  kind  came  in  a  group. 
There  was  a  hopeless  tone  of  finality,  a  solid  clan 
consciousness  in  those  letters  that  frightened  me 
a  little.  I  was  uneasy,  uncertain.  I  had  found 
no  irreconcilable  elements  in  our  minds,  for  I 
was  very  conservative  West,  and  he  was  very 
liberal  East.  But  here  were  represented  the  peo¬ 
ple  with  whom  his  life  must  be  spent  and  the  so¬ 
cial  background  against  which  it  must  harmoni¬ 
ously  unfold.  I  felt  with  terrific  force  that  it 
was  not  Chan-King,  but  Chan-King’s  traditions 
and  ancestors,  his  tremendous  racial  past,  that  I 
must  reckon  with. 

Also,  I  did  not  wish  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his 

future.  I  doubt  if  I  could  have  found  courage 

to  marry  Chan-King,  if  I  had  then  realized  the 

23 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

importance — especially  in  diplomatic  and  politi¬ 
cal  circles — of  clan  and  family  influence  in 
China.  But  he  gave  it  up  so  freely,  with  such 
assured  and  unregretful  cheerfulness,  that  I 
could  not  but  share  his  mood. 

In  these  calm,  logical,  impersonal  family  let¬ 
ters,  which  Chan-King  translated  for  me,  there 
was  a  strain  of  sinister  philosophy  that  chilled 
me  as  I  read.  The  letters  dealt  entirely  with  his 
duty  in  its  many  phases — to  his  parents,  to  his 
ancestors,  to  his  country,  to  his  own  future. 
Nothing  of  love!  Only  one  relative — a  cousin 
— mentioned  it  at  all,  and  in  this  wise :  “You  are 
young  now,  and  to  youth  love  seems  of  great  im¬ 
portance.  But  as  age  replaces  youth,  you  will 
find  that  love  runs  away  like  water.” 

“That  is  not  true,  Chan-King,”  I  said,  with  sol¬ 
emn  conviction.  “Love  is  greater  than  life  or 
age;  it  lives  beyond  death.  It  is  love  that  makes 
eternity!” 

At  this  time,  Chan-King  did  not  quite  compre¬ 
hend  my  mystical  interpretation  of  love.  But 

24 


IN  AMERICA 


he  answered  very  happily,  “To  have  you  for  my 
wife  is  worth  everything  else  the  world  can 
offer.” 

Chan-King  continued  to  write  to  his  family 
briefly  and  respectfully,  declining  to  be  in¬ 
fluenced  in  any  way.  Replies  came  at  lengthen¬ 
ing  intervals  and  then  ceased.  There  was  no 
open  breach,  no  violent  tearing  asunder  of  bonds. 
Courteously,  quite  gently,  the  hands  of  his  peo¬ 
ple  were  removed,  and  he  stood  alone. 

“But  surely  your  mother  will  not  give  you 
up!”  I  exclaimed  one  day  when  it  dawned  on  me 
that  not  one  message  had  she  sent  in  all  the  cor¬ 
respondence. 

“Not  in  her  dear  heart,”  he  said,  with  unshaken 
faith,  “but  of  course  she  will  not  write  to  me  if 
my  father  disapproves.” 

“But  a  mother,  Chan-King!”  I  protested. 
“Surely  her  feelings  come  first  always!” 

Chan-King’s  tone  was  patient  after  the  man¬ 
ner  of  one  who  has  explained  an  obvious  fact 

many  times.  “In  China,”  he  reminded  me  again, 

25 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

“the  family  comes  always  before  the  individual. 
But  with  you  and  me,  Margaret  beloved,  love 
has  first  importance.” 

His  never-failing  insistence  upon  viewing  ours 
as  an  individual  instance,  not  to  be  judged  by 
any  ordinary  standards,  was  a  source  of  great 
strength  to  me  always.  During  the  short  period 
that  followed  before  our  marriage,  we  tiffed  a 
few  times  in  the  most  conventional  manner,  with 
fits  of  jealousy  that  had  no  foundation:  small 
distrusts  that  on  my  part  were  merely  efforts  to 
uphold  what  I  considered  my  proper  feminine 
pride,  and  on  his,  were  often  failures  to  discount 
this  characteristic  temper  of  mine.  Only,  some¬ 
how,  there  was  never  any  rancor  in  our  quarrels. 
Not  once  would  we  deny  our  love  for  each  other. 

So  we  planned  to  be  married  immediately. 
There  were  no  reasons  why  we  should  delay 
further.  That  is  to  say,  none  but  practical  rea¬ 
sons,  and  what  have  they  to  do  with  young  peo¬ 
ple  in  love?  “It  is  a  little  late  for  us  to  begin 

practical  thinking,”  said  Chan-King  cheerfully, 

26 


IN  AMERICA 

when  we  discussed  ways  and  means.  “But  we 
might  as  well  make  the  experiment.” 

Chan-King  was  no  longer  merely  a  student 
with  a  generous  allowance  from  a  wealthy  father. 
On  his  own  resources,  with  his  education  not  com¬ 
pleted,  he  was  about  to  acquire  a  foreign  wife 
and  to  face  an  untried  world.  We  were 
strangely  light-hearted  about  all  this.  Chan- 
King  had  regularly  put  by  more  than  half  of  his 
allowance  since  coming  to  America.  I  meant  to 
be  a  teacher  of  languages,  economically  inde¬ 
pendent  if  circumstances  required  such  aid  for 
a  man  beginning  a  career.  Our  plans  were  soon 
completed.  At  the  end  of  another  term,  which 
we  would  finish  together,  Chan-King  would  be 
graduated,  and  then,  after  a  year  of  practise  in 
his  profession,  he  would  return  to  China,  there  to 
begin  his  life  work.  I  was  to  follow  later.  Noth¬ 
ing  could  have  been  more  delightfully  simple  so 
far  as  wc  could  see,  A  few  days  later  we  were 
married  in  my  mother’s  house  by  an  Anglican 

clergyman.  “Of  course  you  will  live  here  with 

27 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

us  until  you  go  to  China,”  my  parents  had  said. 
“We  want  our  children  with  us,  if  you  can  be 
happy  here.” 

This  seemed  a  very  natural  arrangement  to 
Chan-King,  accustomed  as  he  was  to  family  life. 
But  I  was  apprehensive.  The  popular  western 
idea  that  people  cannot  be  friends  if  they  are 
related  by  law  was  heavy  on  my  mind.  I  did  not 
expect  any  drastic  readjustment  of  temperament 
between  my  Chinese  husband  and  me,  but  I  did 
look  forward  somewhat  timorously  to  a  trying 
period  of  small  complications  due  to  differences 
in  domestic  customs  and  the  routine  of  daily 
living. 

I  need  not  have  worried  a  moment;  a  wonder¬ 
ful  spirit  of  family  cooperation  was  an  important 
part  of  Chan-King’s  oriental  heritage.  From 
the  day  of  our  wedding  he  took  his  place  with 
charming  ease  and  naturalness  as  a  member  of 
the  household.  The  affection  that  existed  be¬ 
tween  my  husband  and  my  parents  simplified 

that  phase  of  our  relation  perfectly,  and  left  us 

28 


IN  AMERICA 


free  to  adjust  ourselves  to  each  other  and  the 
world,  though  the  latter  we  took  very  little  into 
account.  Until  I  met  Chan-King,  the  idea  of 
being  conspicuous  was  unendurable  to  me.  But 
when  I  early  perceived  that  to  appear  with  him 
anywhere  was  to  invite  the  gaze  of  the  curious, 
I  discovered  with  surprise  that  it  mattered  not  at 
all.  I  was  very  proud  of  my  husband  and  loved 
to  go  about  with  him.  We  were  happy  from  the 
beginning. 

Discovering  life  together  proved  a  splendid 
adventure,  which  renewed  itself  daily.  The 
deep  affection  and  tenderness  between  us  created 
subtle  comprehensions  too  delicate  to  be  put  into 
words.  A  quick  look  interchanged  during  a 
pause  in  talk  would  often  convey  a  complete 
thought.  I  always  felt  that  Chan-King  had 
acuter  perceptions,  more  reserve,  and  more  imag¬ 
ination  than  I.  Also  he  was  meticulous — as  I 
was  not — in  regard  to  small  amenities.  I  had 
always  been  used  to  having  my  own  way  without 

causing  discomfort  to  any  one  else,  but  I  found 

29 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

that  I  could  not  speak  carelessly  or  act  thought¬ 
lessly  without  the  risk  of  violating  his  sense  of 
the  fitness  of  things.  My  greatest  difficulty  in 
the  first  few  months  of  our  marriage  came  from 
my  constant  effort  to  adjust  my  mode  of  thought 
and  action  to  meet  a  highly  trained  and  critical 
temperament,  to  whom  the  second-bests  of  asso¬ 
ciation,  spiritual  or  mental  or  material,  were  not 
acceptable.  Yet,  if  he  exacted  much,  he  gave 
more.  In  everything,  he  had  a  generosity  so  sin¬ 
cere  and  spontaneous  that  it  aroused  a  like  qual¬ 
ity  in  me. 

I  am  in  many  ways  the  elemental  type  of 
woman,  requiring,  I  know,  a  certain  measure  of 
domination  in  love.  It  was  imperative  that  I 
respect  my  husband,  and  it  pleased  me  to  dis¬ 
cover,  in  our  several  slight  domestic  crises,  that 
his  was  far  the  stronger  will.  I  had  taken  my 
vow  to  obey,  having  specified  that  the  word  was 
not  to  be  omitted  from  the  marriage  ceremony. 
How  I  should  have  kept  it  under  a  tyrannical 

will  I  do  not  know,  for  Chan-King  was  not  a  do- 

30 


IN  AMERICA 

mestic  dictator.  He  took  it  for  granted  that  we 
were  partners  and  equals  in  our  own  departments 
of  life.  He  trusted  my  judgment  in  the  handling 
of  my  share  of  our  affairs,  and  in  later  years  often 
came  to  me  for  advice  in  his  own.  Nevertheless, 
morally,  the  balance  of  power  was  in  his  hands, 
and  I  was  glad  to  leave  it  there.  Often  our  dis¬ 
agreements  would  end  in  laughter  because  each 
one  of  us  would  give  way  gradually  from  the 
position  first  assumed,  until  we  had  almost 
changed  sides  in  the  discussion.  This  happened 
again  and  again. 

From  the  very  beginning,  I  saw  clearly,  by 
some  grace,  the  point  at  which  Chan-King’s  ori¬ 
ental  mind  and  occidental  education  came  into 
the  keenest  conflict:  my  attitude  toward  other 
men  and  their  attitude  toward  me.  He  was 
never  meanly  jealous  or  suspicious,  but  there  was 
in  him  that  unconquerable  eastern  sense  of  ex¬ 
clusiveness  in  love,  that  cherishing  of  personal 
possession,  so  incomprehensible  to  the  average 
western  imagination. 


31 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

I  had  planned  to  instruct  a  young  man  in 
French  during  the  summer  months,  as  a  part  of 
my  vacation  work,  and  I  casually  announced  my 
intention  to  Chan-King.  He  opposed  it  at  once, 
I  thought  unfairly.  I  was  a  great  while  per¬ 
suading  him  to  admit  his  real  reasons  for  object¬ 
ing.  Finally  I  said,  somewhat  at  random,  “If 
my  pupil  were  a  girl,  you  would  not  care.” 

“You  have  enough  work  as  it  is,”  he  persisted, 
but  without  firmness,  and  his  eyes  flickered  away 
from  mine.  I  laughed  a  little.  He  turned  to 
me  a  face  so  distressed  that  my  smile  died  sud¬ 
denly.  “Oh,  don’t  laugh!”  he  said,  painfully  in 
earnest.  “You  must  keep  in  mind  what  you  are 
to  me.  I — cannot  be  different.  I  am  sorry.” 

I  gave  up  my  harmless  young  pupil  and  said 
nothing  more.  From  that  moment  I  began  to 
form  my  entire  code  of  conduct  where  men  were 
concerned  on  a  rigidly  impersonal  and  formal 
basis.  It  was  not  difficult,  for  my  first  and  only 
affection  was  centered  in  my  husband,  and  the 

impulse  to  coquetry  was  foreign  to  my  nature. 

32 


IN  AMERICA 


My  husband’s  determination  to  leave  my  indi¬ 
viduality  untrammeled  was  sometimes  over¬ 
borne,  in  small  ways  that  delighted  me,  by  his 
innate  sense  of  fitness.  We  played  tennis  and 
he  played  excellently.  One  day,  as  we  left  the 
courts,  he  said  to  me,  “Tennis  just  isn’t  your 
game,  Margaret.  Your  dignity  is  always  get¬ 
ting  in  the  way  of  your  drive.  I  don’t  want  you 
to  give  up  your  dignity — it  is  too  much  a  part  of 
you.  But  you  might  leave  tennis  alone  and  try 
archery.  I  am  sure  that  is  more  suited  to  your 
type.”  The  amused  obedience  with  which  I 
took  his  suggestion  soon  became  enthusiasm  for 
the  new  sport. 

To  me,  marriage  had  always  seemed  the  most 
mystic  and  important  of  human  relations,  in¬ 
volving  at  times  all  the  rest — and  particularly 
parenthood.  I  am  a  born  mother,  to  whom  the 
idea  of  marriage  without  children  is  unthinkable. 
Since  I  put  away  my  dolls,  dream  children  had 
taken  their  place  in  the  background  of  my  fancy. 

I  saw  them  vaguely  at  first,  but  with  the  coming 

33 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

of  love  I  knew  quite  clearly  how  they  would 
look.  Now  that  I  had  married  Chan-King,  I 
should  have  liked  a  child  at  once  as  a  surer  bond 
between  us  and  a  source  of  comfort  for  myself 
while  he  should  be  making  his  start  in  China.  I 
knew  that  he  loved  children,  for  on  several  oc¬ 
casions  I  had  deliberately  put  a  tiny  neighbor  in 
his  way  and  had  taken  note  of  his  warm  friendli¬ 
ness  and  gentleness  with  the  wee  thing.  But, 
fearing  that  he  would  be  unwilling  to  accept  a 
new  responsibility  while  our  affairs  were  still  un¬ 
settled,  I  put  aside  my  desire  for  a  child,  though 
my  loved  books  were  growing  strangely  irksome. 
I  did  not  know  that  my  husband  shared  the  usual 
foreign  belief  that  the  American  woman  is  an 
unwilling  mother. 

Then  one  day  he  went  to  call  on  a  friend  of 
his,  a  Chinese  student  whose  wife  and  little  son 
were  with  him.  “I  saw  the  Chinese  baby,”  he 
told  me  with  boyish  eagerness.  “He  is  going  to 
have  a  little  brother  soon.  Lucky  baby!” 

“Lucky  parents!”  I  corrected  him,  and  sighed 

34 


IN  AMERICA 


enviously.  Chan-King  looked  at  me,  the  wonder 
on  his  face  growing  into  a  delighted  smile.  “Do 
you  mean  it,  Margaret*?”  he  asked  incredulously. 
Then  we  talked  long  and  earnestly  of  our  chil¬ 
dren.  To  Chan-King’s  old-world  mind,  children 
should  follow  marriage  as  naturally  as  fruit  the 
blossom,  and  his  happiness  in  discovering  that 
my  ideals  were  exactly  his  own  brought  us  to  an¬ 
other  plane  of  understanding  and  contentment 
with  each  other.  Besides,  he  explained,  a  grand¬ 
child  would  do  much  to  reconcile  his  parents  to 
our  marriage. 

Happily,  when  the  school  term  was  over,  I  put 
aside  my  books  for  a  needle.  I  had  always  been 
fond  of  sewing,  but  never  had  I  found  such  fas¬ 
cinating  work  as  the  making  of  those  tiny  gar¬ 
ments  of  silk  and  flannel  and  lawn.  My  practi¬ 
cal  mother  protested  against  so  much  embroider¬ 
ing,  but  my  husband  only  smiled  as  he  rummaged 
gently  through  the  basket  of  small  sewing. 

“You  are  a  real  Chinese  wife,  after  all,”  he 

would  say.  “A  Chinese  wife  sews  and  embroid- 

35 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


ers  a  great  deal.  She  even  makes  shoes  for  the 
family.” 

"Shoes,  Chan-King*?” 

"Shoes,  no  less.  To  make  shoes  beautifully  is 
a  fine  art,  and  a  Chinese  woman  takes  pride  in 
excelling  at  it.  She  is  proud  of  her  feet  and 
makes  all  her  own  slippers.” 

Then  he  would  tell  me  stories  of  his  childhood 
and  recall  memories  of  the  closed  garden  in  his 
old  home,  where  he  played  at  battledore  with  a 
tiny  girl,  while  her  mother  and  his  mother  sat 
together,  embroidering  and  talking  in  low  tones. 
The  two  young  mothers  were  friends  and  were 
planning  for  the  marriage  of  their  son  and 
daughter,  which  would  strengthen  the  friendship 
into  a  family  bond. 

I  took  great  interest  in  this  little  girl,  who 
flitted  through  Chan-King’s  stories  like  a  bril¬ 
liant  butterfly  seen  through  a  mist.  Her  name 
was  Li-Ying  and  she  was  only  three  years  old 
when  she  ran,  with  her  little  feet  still  unbound, 

through  those  sweetly  remembered  green  gar- 

36 


IN  AMERICA 

dens  of  his  childhood.  Somewhere  now  she  was 
sitting,  her  lily  feet  meekly  crossed,  embroider¬ 
ing  shoes,  waiting  until  her  father  should  betroth 
her  to  another  youth. 

When  Chan-King  showed  me  a  portrait  of 
himself,  taken  in  a  group  with  his  mother  and 
father  when  he  was  eight  years  old,  I  examined 
very  thoughtfully  the  austerely  beautiful  face 
of  the  woman  who  had  brought  him  into  life. 
She  sat  on  one  side  of  the  carved  hlackwood 
table.  Her  narrow,  paneled  skirt  was  raised  a 
trifle  to  show  her  amazingly  tiny  feet.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  table  sat  Chan-King’s  father,  an 
irreconcilably  stern  and  autocratic-looking  man, 
magnificently  garbed  in  the  old  style.  Beside 
him  stood  a  small,  solemn  boy,  wearing  a  round 
cap,  his  queue  still  bound,  he  told  me,  with  a  red 
cord,  his  hands  lost  in  the  long  velvet  sleeves  that 
reached  almost  to  his  knees.  I  put  my  finger  on 
the  head  of  this  boy.  “I  hope  our  son  will  look 
exactly  like  him,”  I  said. 

At  last  the  hoped-for  son  was  born  and  laid  in 

37 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

my  arms.  He  was  swaddled  and  powdered  and 
new  and  he  wept  for  obscure  reasons.  But  my 
husband  and  I  smiled  joyfully  at  the  delicious, 
incredible  resemblance  of  that  tiny  face  to  his 
own.  Chan-King  looked  at  him  a  long  time,  a 
quizzical,  happy  smile  in  the  corners  of  his 
mouth.  Then  he  kissed  me  very  gently  and 
said,  “He’s  a  real  Liang  baby,  Margaret.  Are 
you  glad?”  I  answered  that  I  was  glad,  as  I 
had  been  for  everything  love  had  brought  to 
me. 

Our  plans  progressed  favorably,  and,  when 
our  son  Wilfred  was  five  months  old,  Chan-King 
returned  to  China.  I  told  him  good-by  in  the  way 
I  knew  would  please  him  most — calmly  and 
without  tears.  But  when  it  came  to  the  last  mo¬ 
ment,  I  felt  unable  to  let  him  go.  Mutely  I  clung 
to  him,  the  baby  on  my  arm  between  us. 

“It  won’t  be  for  long,  this,”  he  assured  me. 
“We  shall  all  be  together  at  home  very  soon. 
You  are  brave  and  dear  and  true,  Margaret. 

You  shall  never  be  made  sorry.  Be  patient.” 

38 


IN  AMERICA 

His  first  letters  told  of  his  new  work  in  one  of 
the  older  colleges  for  which  Shanghai  is  famous. 
He  also  began  his  practise  of  law  in  an  official 
capacity.  His  first  step  toward  the  diplomatic 
service  had  been  taken. 

At  the  end  of  four  months,  I  received  his  sum¬ 
mons  and  went  about  making  ready  for  the  jour¬ 
ney  to  China  with  my  young  son.  My  life-work 
was  to  help  my  husband  in  making  a  home.  His 
life-work  was  in  China.  The  conclusion  was  so 
obvious  that  neither  I  nor  my  parents  had  ever 
questioned  it.  But  now  that  the  moment  had 
come,  the  friends  of  the  family  were  very  much 
excited.  They  asked  strange  questions.  Are  you 
really  going1?  How  can  you  leave  your  mother? 
How  can  you  give  up  beautiful  America? 
Aren’t  you  afraid  to  go  to  China?  I  answered 
as  patiently  and  reasonably  as  I  could.  They 
wearied  me  very  much. 

Of  China  itself  I  had  no  clear  conception,  in 

spite  of  Chan-King’s  letters,  for  though  my  old 

prejudice  had  passed  away,  yet  still  I  saw  all 

39 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

the  country  only  as  a  background  for  my  hus¬ 
band’s  face. 

I  followed  Chan-King’s  minute  instructions 
concerning  traveling  arrangements,  and  Wilfred 
and  I  had  a  pleasant  voyage.  Early  one  morn¬ 
ing  I  looked  through  the  porthole  and  saw  about 
me  the  murky  waters  of  the  Yangtze,  alive  with 
native  craft,  while  dimly  through  the  mist 
loomed  the  fortifications  of  Woosung.  Already 
the  tender  was  waiting,  and  soon  we  were  aboard, 
moving  rapidly  up  the  mouth  of  the  river.  The 
mist  cleared,  green  banks  arose  on  each  side,  and 
through  distant  trees  gleamed  red  brick  build¬ 
ings  like  any  at  home,  side  by  side  with  the  white- 
plastered  walls  and  tip-tilted  roofs  of  China. 
In  that  long  ride,  Shanghai  grew  upon  me  grad¬ 
ually,  a  curious  mixture  of  the  known  and  the 
unknown,  tantalizing  me  with  the  feeling  that 
I  had  seen  all  this  before  and  ought  to  remember 
it  better.  In  the  water  about  me,  steamer,  launch 
and  battle-ship  mingled  with  native  junk,  river- 

barge  and  house-boat.  Suddenly  in  the  waiting 

40 


IN  AMERICA 

group  on  the  customs  jetty  I  saw  my  husband. 
In  another  moment  we  had  drawn  alongside  the 
wharf  and  he  was  in  the  tender  beside  me,  greet¬ 
ing  me  in  the  formally  courteous  manner  he 
deemed  suited  to  public  occasions.  Taking  Wil¬ 
fred  in  his  arms,  he  drew  me  up  the  steps  and  to  a 
waiting  carriage. 

Here  again  was  the  confused  mingling  of  the 
strange  and  the  familiar:  clanging  tram-cars, 
honking  automobiles,  smooth-rolling  rickshaws, 
creaking,  wheel-barrows  and  lumbering,  man- 
drawn  trucks;  dark  coolie-faces  under  wide  straw 
hats,  gently  bred  features  beneath  pith  helmets, 
black,  bearded  countenances  below  huge,  gay 
turbans;  a  bewildering  jumble  of  alien  and  Eng¬ 
lish  speech. 

Even  in  Chan-King  I  found  it.  He  was  wear¬ 
ing  American  dress,  his  face  had  not  changed, 
the  tones  of  his  voice  were  the  same,  but  he  was 
speaking  Chinese,  and  his  directions  to  the  mafoo 
were  to  me  a  meaningless  succession  of  sounds. 

But  when  he  was  beside  me  in  the  carriage  and 

41 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

the  horses  had  started,  he  turned  suddenly  and 
smiled  straight  into  my  eyes.  Then,  Shanghai, 
Borneo  or  the  North  Pole — all  would  have  been 
one  to  me.  I  asked  no  questions;  I  was  with  my 
husband  and  child,  driving  rapidly  toward  the 
home  prepared  for  me.  I  had  come  home  to 
China. 


42 


II 


IN  SHANGHAI 


II 

IN  SHANGHAI 

My  first  impressions  of  Shanghai  are  a  blur. 
My  husband  and  I  drove  rapidly  along  the  Bund, 
over  Garden  Bridge,  which  might  have  been  any 
bridge  in  America,  past  the  Astor  House,  which 
was  very  like  any  American  hotel,  and  then  along 
the  Soochow  Creek,  which  could  be  only  in 
China. 

On  North  Szechuan  Road  we  stopped  at  a  li, 
or  terrace,  of  newly  built  houses  in  the  style 
called  semi-foreign.  This  li,  which  was  in  the 
International  Settlement,  was  very  bright  and 
clean.  It  opened  upon  the  main  thoroughfare. 
The  heavy  walls  of  bright  red  brick  were  inter¬ 
rupted  at  intervals  by  black  doors  bearing  brass 
name-plates.  At  one  of  these  my  husband 
stopped  and  touched  a  very  American-looking 
push-button.  A  bell  trilled  within,  and  the  door 

was  opened  by  a  smiling  “boy”  in  a  long  blue 

45 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


cotton  gown.  We  crossed  a  small  courtyard 
bright  with  flowers  and  vines,  and,  coming  to  the 
main  entrance,  stepped  directly  into  a  large 
square  room.  It  was  cool,  immaculate  and  rest¬ 
ful.  The  matting-covered  floors,  the  skilfully 
arranged  tables,  chairs  and  sofa,  the  straight 
hangings  of  green  and  white,  threaded  with  gold,, 
were  exactly  what  I  should  have  wished  to  choose 
for  myself.  I  was  pleasantly  surprised  by  the 
gas  chandelier  with  its  shades  of  green  and  gold 
and  wfiite.  A  dark  green  gas  radiator  along  one 
wall  suggested  that  Shanghai  was  not  always  so 
warm  as  then.  It  was  a  very  modest  little  home, 
befitting  a  man  with  his  own  way  to  make,  Chan- 
King  explained,  as  he  led  me  through  the  rooms 
for  a  hasty  survey.  Then  Wilfred  was  surren¬ 
dered  to  his  amah ,  a  fresh-cheeked  young  woman 
in  stiffly  starched  blue  “coat,”  white  trousers  and 
apron,  while  we  made  ready  for  a  tiffin  engage¬ 
ment  with  Chinese  friends  of  Chan-King’s. 

After  a  short  rickshaw  ride — novel  and  de¬ 
lightful  to  me- — we  turned  from  the  main  road 

46 


IN  SHANGHAI 

into  another  series  of  terraces  and  entered  a  reaj 
Chinese  household.  The  host  and  hostess,  who 
had  both  been  in  America  and  spoke  excellent 
English,  were  very  cordial  in  their  welcome.  I 
felt  more  at  home  than  I  had  believed  could  be 
possible.  Tiffin  was  served  in  the  Chinese  fash¬ 
ion,  the  guests  seated  at  a  great  round  table,  with 
the  dishes  of  meat,  fish  and  vegetables  placed  in 
the  center,  so  that  each  one  could  help  himself 
as  he  chose.  Individual  bowls  of  rice,  small 
plates,  chopsticks  and  spoons  were  at  each  plate. 
Set  at  intervals,  were  small,  shallow  dishes  con¬ 
taining  soy,  mustard  or  catsup  and  also  roasted 
melon-seeds  and  almonds.  When  my  hostess, 
who  had  thoughtfully  rounded  out  her  delicious 
Chinese  menu  with  bread  and  butter  and  velvety 
ice-cream,  as  thoughtfully  produced  a  silver  knife 
and  fork  for  me,  my  husband  explained  that  I 
was  rather  deft  in  the  use  of  chopsticks.  Though 
he  had  taught  me,  during  the  early  days  of  our 
marriage,  to  use  a  slender  ivory  pair  that  he  pos¬ 
sessed,  I  was  now  very  nervous,  but  I  felt  obliged 

47 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


to  prove  his  delighted  assertion.  So  my  social 
conformity  as  a  Chinese  wife  began  there,  before 
a  friendly  and  amused  audience,  who  assured  me 
that  I  did  very  well. 

On  the  way  home  Chan-King  said,  “Will  this 
be  difficult  for  you,  Margaret4?” 

“Chopsticks?”  I  asked  gaily,  well  enough 
knowing  that  he  did  not  mean  chopsticks.  “No, 
I  like  them!” 

“I  mean  everything,”  he  said  very  gravely, 
“China — customs,  people,  homesickness,  every¬ 
thing.” 

“You  will  see  whether  you  haven’t  married  a 
true  Oriental,”  I  answered  him.  “As  for  home¬ 
sickness,  why,  Chan-King — I  am  at  home.” 

The  most  important  thing  at  first,  materially 
speaking,  was  that  Chan-King  must  make  his  own 
way  without  help  of  any  sort.  And  for  the  upper 
class  Chinese  this  is  very  difficult.  He  was  teach¬ 
ing  advanced  English  in  one  of  the  largest  col¬ 
leges  in  Shanghai,  maintaining  a  legal  practise 

and  giving  lectures  on  international  law.  He 

48 


IN  SHANGHAI 


was  glad  to  be  at  home  again,  filled  with  enthus¬ 
iasm  for  his  work,  hopeful  as  the  young  returned 
students  always  are  at  first,  and,  through  sheer 
inability  to  limit  his  endeavors,  working  beyond 
his  strength. 

Our  happiness  at  being  together  again  made 
all  things  seem  possible.  From  its  fragmentary 
beginnings  in  America,  we  gathered  again  into 
our  hands  the  life  we  expected  to  make  so  full 
and  rich.  My  part,  I  recognized,  was  to  be  a 
genuinely  old-fashioned  wife — the  role  I  was 
best  fitted  for,  and  the  one  most  helpful  to  Chan- 
King.  And  I  began  by  running  my  Chinese 
household  with  minute  attention  to  providing 
for  his  comfort  in  small  ways  that  he  liked  and 
never  failed  to  appreciate. 

Our  two-story  house  consisted  of  two  big  rooms 
downstairs  and  sleeping  apartments  and  a  tiny 
roof-garden  upstairs.  In  this  roof-garden  I  spent 
most  of  my  time,  and  there  Wilfred  and  his 
amah  passed  many  afternoons.  It  was  a  pleas¬ 
ant,  sunny  place,  furnished  with  painted  steamer 

49 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


chairs,  rugs  and  blooming  plants  in  pottery  jars. 
At  the  back,  rather  removed  from  the  main  part 
of  the  house,  were  the  kitchen,  servants’  quar¬ 
ters  and  an  open-air  laundry  We  were  realty 
very  practical  and  modern  and  comfortable. 
Our  kitchen  provided  for  an  admirable  com¬ 
promise  between  old  and  new  methods.  It  had 
an  English  gas-range  and  a  Chinese  one.  But 
the  proper  Chinese  atmosphere  was  preserved  by 
three  well-trained  servants  who  called  them¬ 
selves  Ah  Ching,  Ah  Ling  and  Ah  Poh.  Most 
Shanghai  servants  are  called  simply  “Boy”  or 
“Amah”  or  “Coolie”  but  ours  chose  those  names, 
as  distinctive  for  servants  there  as  James  and 
Bridget  are  with  us.  Ah  Ching  did  most  of  the 
house-work  and  the  running  of  errands;  Ah  Ling 
did  the  marketing  and  cooking,  giving  us  a  pleas¬ 
antly  varied  succession  of  Chinese  and  foreign 
dishes;  Ah  Poh,  the  amah,  looked  after  Wilfred 
and  attended  to  my  personal  wants. 

PYom  the  first  I  was  fond  of  Ah  Poh,  with  her 

finely  formed,  intelligent  features,  her  soft  voice 

50 


IN  SHANGHAI 

and  gentle,  unhurried  manner.  She  had  served 
an  American  mistress  before  coming  to  me,  but 
showed  a  surprising  willingness  to  adopt  my  par¬ 
ticular  way  of  doing  things,  whether  in  making 
beds,  in  keeping  my  clothes  in  order  or  in  enter¬ 
taining  Wilfred.  On  the  other  hand.  Ah  Ching, 
elderly,  grave  and  full  of  responsibility,  was  very 
partial  to  his  accustomed  way  of  arranging  fur¬ 
niture  and  of  washing  windows  and  floors.  If 
left  to  himself,  he  would  dust  odd  nooks  and  cor¬ 
ners  faithfully,  but  if  I  made  any  formal  inspec¬ 
tion  of  his  labors,  he  would  invariably  slight 
them — to  intimate  that  I  should  not  be  suspi¬ 
cious,  as  a  friend  explained — a  form  of  logic  that 
I  found  highly  amusing.  Ah  Ling,  aside  from 
his  culinary  ability,  was  chiefly  interesting  be¬ 
cause  his  eyes  were  really  oblique — as  Chinese 
eyes  are  supposed  to  be,  and  usually  are  not,  and 
because  his  hair  really  curled — as  Chinese  hair 
is  supposed  never  to  do,  and  does,  occasionally. 

For  a  young  pair  bent  on  thrift,  we  may  have 

seemed  very  extravagant  indeed.  In  similar  cir- 

51 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 
cumstances  in  America,  I  should  probably  have 
thought  it  extravagant  to  have  even  one  servant. 
But  this  household  was  a  very  small  one  for 
China  and,  on  our  modest  income,  we  maintained 
it  with  a  satisfactory  margin. 

Chan-King  was  helpful  and  showed  great  tact 
and  understanding  in  getting  our  establishment 
under  way.  I  would  not  confess  to  my  utter  be¬ 
wilderment  in  trying  to  manage  servants  who 
did  not  understand  half  of  what  I  said  to  them. 
I  think  he  became  aware  that  I  was  holding  on 
rather  hard  at  times  during  those  first  months, 
and  he  never  failed  me.  In  turn,  I  helped  him 
revise  his  papers  in  the  evenings  and  assisted  him 
with  his  letters,  and  he  used  to  call  me  his  secre¬ 
tary.  We  discovered  during  that  first  year  in 
China  that  we  had  formed  a  true  partnership. 

Our  social  life  was  very  pleasant.  We  enter¬ 
tained  a  great  deal,  in  a  simple  way.  We  be¬ 
longed  to  a  club  or  two  and  kept  in  close  touch 
with  the  work  of  the  returned  students,  who  have 

become  an  important  factor  in  the  national  life. 

52 


IN  SHANGHAI 

Though  wishing  to  conserve  what  is  best  in  the 
civilization  of  China,  they  are  bringing  western 
ideas  to  bear  upon  the  solution  of  political,  socio¬ 
logical  and  economic  problems  Many  of  these 
students,  as  well  as  other  interesting  people, 
both  Chinese  and  foreign,  gathered  at  our  house 
for  dinners  and  teas. 

There  was  a  veteran  of  the  customs  service,  a 
portly  gentleman  with  bristling  white  mustache, 
who  had  been  one  of  the  first  group  of  govern¬ 
ment  students  sent  to  America  fifty  years  before. 
He  told  interesting  stories  of  the  trials  and  joys 
of  those  early  days  and  humorously  lamented  the 
fact  that  real  apple  pie  was  not  to  be  obtained 
in  China.  There  was  a  distinguished  editor  of 
English  publications,  a  tall,  spare  figure,  whose 
very  quietness  suggested  reserves  of  mental 
power.  With  him  often  was  a  short,  energetic 
man  in  early  maturity — a  far-sighted  educator 
and  convincing  orator.  I  remember  a  lively  dis¬ 
cussion  opened  up  by  these  two  concerning  the 

need  for  a  Chinese  magazine  devoted  to  the  in- 

53 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

terests  of  the  modern  woman  of  China — an  early 
dream,  which  is  now  being  fulfilled.  There  was 
a  retired  member  of  Parliament  with  an  unfailing 
zeal  for  political  discussion,  who  has  since  re¬ 
turned  to  the  service  of  his  government.  Also 
a  smiling  young  man,  who  went  about  persuad¬ 
ing  Old  China  of  her  need  for  progress,  but  who 
could  on  occasion  put  aside  his  dignity  to  indulge 
a  talent  for  diverting  bits  of  comedy.  There  was 
the  Chinese-American  son  of  a  former  diplomat, 
who — born  in  America  and  coming  to  China  as 
a  grown  man — seemed  definitely  to  recognize  his 
kinship  with  the  land  of  his  fathers,  a  fact  that 
Chan-King  and  I  found  interesting  for  its  pos¬ 
sible  bearing  on  the  future  of  our  own  sons. 
Naturally,  most  of  our  friends  were  the  younger 
modern  folk,  who  were  loosening  the  ancient 
bonds  of  formality  in  their  daily  lives  But  many 
of  the  older  and  more  conservative  people  also 
used  to  come  to  our  evening  gatherings,  where 
my  husband  and  I  received  side  by  side. 

As  I  came  to  know  the  Chinese,  I  was  delighted 

54 


IN  SHANGHAI 


with  their  social  deftness.  They  stress  grace  of 
manner  and  courtesy  as  the  foundations  of  all 
social  life.  I  was  pleasantly  impressed  by  the 
measure  of  deference  that  they  showed  to  wives, 
daughters,  sisters  and  friends — so  different  from 
the  contempt  that  western  imagination  supposes 
to  be  their  invariable  share.  Occasionally  I  no¬ 
ticed  a  husband  carefully  translating  that  his 
wife  might  fully  enjoy  the  conversation.  Many 
of  the  women,  however,  spoke  English  excel¬ 
lently.  All  our  receptions  and  dinners  were  de¬ 
lightfully  free  and  full  of  good  talk.  The 
Chinese  have  so  beautifully  the  gift  of  saying 
profound  things  lightly;  they  can  think  deeply 
without  being  heavy  and  pedantic. 

I  remember  the  first  dinner  party  I  attended  in 
Shanghai.  It  was  rather  a  grand  affair,  with 
many  guests,  all  Chinese  save  me — “and  I’m  al¬ 
most  Chinese,”  I  said  to  my  husband.  The  men 
and  women  all  sat  together  around  one  great 
table,  in  excellent  humor  with  each  other,  and 
the  talk  was  very  gay. 


55 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

A  little  Chinese  woman  whom  I  knew  rather 
well  said  to  me  later,  “And  think  of  it — only  last 
year  in  this  house  we  should  have  been  at  sepa¬ 
rate  tables!”  When  I  asked  her  to  explain,  she 
said  that  once  men  did  not  bring  their  guests  to 
their  homes  at  all.  Then  they  brought  them, 
but  entertained  them  in  the  men’s  side  of  the 
house.  Later  they  admitted  women  to  dine  in 
the  same  room,  but  at  separate  tables,  and  now, 
here  we  are,  chatting  and  dining  together  quite 
in  western  fashion.  “I  like  this  much  better,” 
the  little  lady  decided. 

I  was  glad  to  see  that  all  of  them  wore  Chi¬ 
nese  dress,  for  it  is  most  impressively  beautiful. 
I  wore  my  first  jacket  and  plaited  skirt  that  night, 
a  combination  of  pale  green  and  black  satin,  and 
now  and  then  I  would  see  Chan-King’s  eyes 
turned  upon  me  with  the  look  I  best  loved  to  see 
there — a  clear,  warm  affection  shining  in  them, 
a  certain  steady  glow  of  expression  that  had  love 
and  friendship  and  understanding  in  it.  I  think 

the  sight  of  me  in  the  dress  of  his  country  con- 

50 


IN  SHANGHAI 


firmed  in  his  mind  my  declaration  that  I  loved 
China — that  I  wanted  to  be  a  real  Chinese  wife. 

After  this,  though  for  certain  occasions  the 
American  fashion  seemed  more  appropriate,  I 
wore  Chinese  dress  a  great  deal.  I  remember  a 
day  when  Dr.  Wu  Ting- fang  came  to  dinner, 
and,  as  he  bowed  to  me,  obviously  took  note  of 
my  garb. 

He  looked  at  me  very  keenly  for  a  moment,  as 
if  he  meant  to  ask  a  serious  question.  Then  he 
said,  in  his  abrupt  manner,  “You  are  happy  in 
that  dress?” 

“Indeed  I  am,”  I  answered. 

“You  like  it  better  than  you  like  American 
clothes?”  he  persisted. 

I  nodded  firmly,  smiling  and  catching  my  hus¬ 
band’s  eye. 

“Then  wear  it  always,”  said  the  Doctor,  with 
a  pontifical  lifting  of  his  fingers. 

Oddly  enough,  my  husband  did  not  care  for 

the  native  feminine  fashion  of  trousers  and 

never  permitted  me  to  wear  them.  I  considered 

57 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

them  very  graceful  and  comfortable,  but  gladly 
adopted  the  severely  plain  skirts  with  the  plaits 
at  the  sides. 

I  had  put  on  China,  to  wear  it  always,  in  my 
heart  and  mind,  and  thought  only  of  my  hus¬ 
band,  his  work  and  his  people.  In  the  beginning, 
I  should  have  been  perfectly  content  to  remain 
cloistered,  to  meet  no  one  save  a  few  woman 
friends,  to  go  nowhere.  Life  flowed  by  me  so 
evenly  that  I  was  happy  to  drift  with  it,  filled 
with  dreams.  The  noises  of  hurrying,  half-mod¬ 
ernized  Shanghai  reached  me  but  vaguely,  deep 
within  my  cool,  quiet  house  where  the  floors  were 
spread  with  white  matting  and  the  walls  were 
hung  with  symbolic  panels.  The  click  of  the 
ponies’  feet  on  the  pavement,  the  thud  of  the 
rickshaw  coolies’  heels  as  they  drew  their  noise¬ 
less,  rubber-tired  vehicles,  the  strident  scream  of 
the  automobile  horns,  the  strange,  long  cries  of 
the  street  venders,  all  came  to  me  muffled  as 
through  many  curtains  that  sheltered  me  from 

the  world.  But  my  husband  insisted  that  I  go 

58 


IN  SHANGHAI 


about  with  him  everywhere  that  he  felt  we  should 
go,  that  I  help  him  entertain,  that  I  meet  and 
mingle  with  many  people,  both  foreign  and  Chi¬ 
nese. 

He  was  always  ready  to  advise  me  on  social 
matters,  a  more  difficult  undertaking  than  might 
be  supposed.  I  have  already  spoken  of  the  many 
gradations  in  the  meeting  of  East  and  West. 
These  alone  are  confusing  enough,  and  there  are 
further  complexities  due  to  the  fact  that  in  the 
two  civilizations  the  fine  points  of  etiquette  are 
often  entirely  at  variance.  A  single  example 
will  suffice — the  custom  of  serving  a  guest,  as 
soon  as  seated,  with  some  form  of  refreshment. 
In  the  very  conservative  Chinese  household,  if 
the  visitor  even  touches  the  cup  of  tea,  placed  be¬ 
side  him  on  a  small  table,  he  is  guilty  of  a  gross 
breach  of  good  manners.  In  the  ultra  modern 
household,  he  must  drink  the  iced  summer  bever¬ 
age  or  the  piping  hot  winter  drink,  to  avoid  giv¬ 
ing  offense.  Then  there  are  the  variously  modi¬ 
fied  establishments,  where  he  attempts  an  exact 

59 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

degree  of  compromise,  whether  acknowledging 
the  offering  merely  by  a  gracious  bow,  or  going 
further  by  raising  it  to  the  lips  for  a  dainty  sip, 
or  being  still  more  liberal  and  consuming  one- 
half  the  proffered  amount.  That  such  situations 
are  often  baffling,  even  to  Young  China,  I  have 
heard  it  laughingfy  confessed  in  many  lively  dis¬ 
cussions.  But  though  occasional  errors  are  inevi¬ 
table,  sincere  good  will  is  truly  valued  and  sel¬ 
dom  misunderstood.  Chan-King’s  ability  to 
consider  all  points  of  view  at  once  was  very  help¬ 
ful  to  me. 

But  he  forgot  to  warn  me  that  in  Shanghai 
social  calling  is  proper  at  any  hour  of  the  day 
from  nine  o’clock  in  the  morning  until  ten  o’clock 
at  night.  I  was  therefore  three  days  in  learn¬ 
ing,  during  a  short  absence  of  his,  that  early 
morning  and  late  evening  calling  was  an  institu¬ 
tion,  and  not  an  accidental  occurrence,  as  I  at  first 
supposed.  Finally,  Ah  Ching  gave  me  a  hint.  I 
was  in  a  negligee,  preparing  for  a  morning  of  lazy 

play  with  Wilfred  and  hoping  there  would  be 

60 


IN  SHANGHAI 


no  interruptions,  when  Ah  Ching  appeared  and 
announced  callers.  My  face  must  have  expressed 
surprise  and  a  shade  of  annoyance,  as  it  had  for 
three  days  previously  at  these  summonses,  for 
Ah  Ching  hesitated  a  moment  and  then  vouch¬ 
safed  what  he  plainly  considered  a  valuable  piece 
of  information.  “In  Shanghai,”  said  Ah  Ching, 
“he  all  time  go  to  see — all  time  come  to  see.” 
He  paused.  “ All  time!”  he  added  firmly  and 
departed.  I  found  this  to  be  literally  true  and  I 
therefore  formed  my  habits  of  dress  on  the  as¬ 
sumption  that  callers  demanding  the  utmost  for¬ 
mality  of  behavior  and  appearance  might  be  an¬ 
nounced  at  any  moment. 

Needless  to  say,  Ah  Ching’ s  “he”  was  pidgin 
English  for  “she,”  for  my  personal  visitors  were 
all  women.  They  were  of  many  nationalities — 
Chinese,  of  course,  and  also  American,  Canadian, 
English,  Scotch  and  French.  With  the  Chinese 
women,  especially,  I  found  myself  in  perfect  har¬ 
mony.  Nowhere,  I  believe,  does  sincerity  and 

good-will  meet  with  a  warmer  response.  They 

Cl 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


accepted  me  with  a  cordiality  that  was  very  real 
and  rendered  invaluable  assistance  in  my  initia¬ 
tion  into  the  new  life.  They  took  me  calling, 
shopping  and  marketing  until  Shanghai  ceased 
to  be  a  bewildering  maze  of  crowded  thorough¬ 
fares;  they  helped  me  to  understand  the  com¬ 
plexities  of  Chinese  currency;  they  explained  the 
intricate  points  of  fashion  in  dress  and  recom¬ 
mended  skilful  tailors. 

From  the  first  we  were  deeply  interested  in  the 
meeting  and  blending  of  East  and  West  that 
went  on  about  us  everywhere,  in  every  field  of 
endeavor.  We  found  unique  opportunity  for 
fresh  impressions  in  the  Second  Far  Eastern 
Olympics  held  at  Shanghai  that  spring.  In  the 
presence  of  many  thousand  spectators,  China,  the 
Philippines  and  Japan  strove  for  supremacy  in 
athletic  prowess.  The  affair  was  managed  en¬ 
tirely  by  Chinese,  and  during  most  of  the  con¬ 
tests  my  husband  was  busy  on  the  grounds  in 
official  capacity.  I  sat  in  the  grand-stand  with 

Chinese  woman  friends,  some  of  whom  were  re- 

62 


IN  SHANGHAI 


turned  students,  and  the  rousing  cheers,  the 
whole-hearted  enthusiasm,  brought  to  us  vivid 
memories  of  college  days  in  America.  The  eve¬ 
nings  were  filled  with  receptions  and  garden  par¬ 
ties  in  honor  of  the  visitors.  Of  course  our 
pleasure  in  the  whole  affair  was  immeasurably 
heightened  by  China’s  well-earned  triumph. 

As  the  months  passed,  Chan-King’s  high¬ 
hearted  enthusiasm,  his  dauntless  will  to  carry 
through  great  work  in  the  education  of  Young 
China,  flagged  to  some  degree,  from  terrible  dis¬ 
illusionment. 

This  is  the  problem  all  returned  students  have 
sooner  or  later  to  face  and  conquer.  They  come 
home  brimming  with  hope  and  filled  with  aspira¬ 
tions  toward  their  country’s  betterment.  And 
gradually  they  are  forced  to  acknowledge  one 
enormous  fact — that  China  has  been  her  glorious, 
grim  old  self  for  too  many  centuries,  her  feet  are 
sunk  too  deeply  in  the  earth  of  her  ancient  tra¬ 
ditions,  to  be  uprooted  by  one  generation  of  youth 

— or  two  or  three  or  a  hundred. 

63 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

Chan-King  chafed  and  worried  and  worked 
too  hard.  Strangely  enough,  he  grew  homesick 
for  America,  though  I  did  not. 

“America  strides  like  a  young  boy,  and  China 
creeps  like  an  old  woman!”  he  said  bitterly  one 
day  after  attending  a  meeting  of  the  college 
board,  where  his  modern  ideas  of  education  had 
suffered  a  defeat  at  the  hands  of  the  reactionary 
body. 

“But  China  is  a  wise,  wise  old  woman!”  I  re¬ 
plied  gently. 

And  very  often  during  this  time  I  would  up¬ 
hold  the  traditions  of  the  East  while  Chan-King 
championed  the  ways  of  the  western  world. 

My  husband  underwent  disappointments,  irri¬ 
tations  and  trials  that  would  have  been  unen¬ 
durable  in  a  less  securely  poised  nature.  As  it 
was,  he  suffered  so  in  the  great  things  that  he  had 
but  little  patience  for  the  small  ones,  and  I  often 
found  him  sudden  of  temper,  with  a  quick  asper¬ 
ity  of  tone  and  finality  of  judgment  that  showed 

me  clearly  how  great  a  strain  he  was  under. 

64 


IN  SHANGHAI 

But  with  us  there  was  always  love.  And 
Chan-King  was  very  careful  to  make  me 
understand,  even  in  the  midst  of  small  disap¬ 
pointments  and  vexations,  that  these  things  were 
the  universal  human  annoyances  that  had  noth¬ 
ing  to  do  with  regrets  or  a  sense  of  alienation. 
I  broke  into  tears  one  day  when  a  sharp  little 
scene  occurred  over  nothing  at  all.  “O  Mar¬ 
garet,  my  dearest!”  he  said,  taking  me  in  his 
arms,  “these  moods  mean  nothing  between  us, 
when  we  love  each  other  so!  Don’t  take  them 
seriously!  What  could  destroy  our  happiness 
now?”  In  spite  of  the  world-wide  difference  in 
our  race  and  upbringing,  whatever  difficulties  of 
temperamental  adaptation  we  had  to  meet  were 
merely  such  as  must  be  faced  by  any  husband  and 
wife  in  any  land. 

Yet  Chan-King’s  personal  fascination  for  me, 

his  never-failing  appeal  to  my  imagination,  was 

definitely  founded  on  the  oriental  quality  in 

him.  I  found  throughout  the  years,  in  every 

phase  of  our  relation,  a  constant,  irresistible,  al- 

65 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


ways  recurring  thrill  in  the  idea  that  we  were  not 
of  the  same  race  or  civilization. 

Once  when  I  confessed  this  fact  to  him,  he 
said,  “Do  you  love  me  only  because  I  am  Chi¬ 
nese4?” 

“No — I  think  I  should  have  loved  you  no  mat¬ 
ter  what  race  you  came  of.  But  how  can  I 
know?” 

“I  like  to  feel  that  you  love  the  essential  me” 

“Yes,  but  the  essential  you  is  Chinese.” 

He  thought  a  moment.  “Chinese,  yes,  but  a 
most  respectable  member  of  the  Dutch  Reformed 
Church  of  America!” 

“I  won’t  let  that  injure  you  in  my  eyes!”  I 
assured  him,  laughing.  I  was  of  the  Anglican 
faith,  and  we  often  referred  to  the  strange  mix¬ 
ture  of  nationalities  in  our  creeds. 

My  husband,  in  spite  of  his  firm  faith,  was  not 

of  a  deeply  religious  mind,  and  of  the  two  I  was 

much  more  mystical  in  my  beliefs.  Love,  divine 

and  human,  had  come  to  mean  everything  to  me, 

in  a  literal  and  spiritual  sense.  I  believed,  ob- 

66 


IN  SHANGHAI 

scurely  at  first,  but  with  increasing  surety  and 
faith  as  time  went  on,  that  human  love  also  was 
not  of  time  only,  but  of  eternity  as  well.  And 
when  I  found  that  Chan-King  did  not  share  this 
belief,  I  felt,  for  the  only  time  in  all  my  mar¬ 
riage,  alien  to  him,  shut  out  by  an  impalpable 
veil  from  his  profoundest  inner  life,  wThieh  I 
wished  passionately  to  share  in  everything.  The 
discovery  came  hand  in  hand  with  our  first 
shadow — only  the  shadow  of  a  shadow,  I  might 
call  it,  so  vague,  at  the  beginning,  that  we  could 
not  feel  more  than  an  uneasiness. 

Chan-King  fell  ill,  though  not  seriously,  and 
he  recovered  quickly.  But  on  the  up-curve  of 
returning  health  he  never  quite  regained  the  old 
plane  of  physical  well-being.  Signs — oh,  the 
very  smallest  of  signs — warned  us  of  a  grave, 
slow  breaking  down  of  his  system  under  phthisis. 
We  could  not  quite  believe  it. 

His  physician  advised  him  to  ease  the  strain  of 

work  as  much  as  he  could.  We  talked  together 

in  the  early  hours  of  many  nights,  Chan-King 

67 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

always  insisting  that  his  depression  was  the  re¬ 
sult  of  temporary  fatigue,  sure  to  pass  away 
with  a  few  weeks’  repose  in  the  open  air  of  the 
hills. 

It  was  during  this  time  that  I  spoke  to  him  of 
the  everlastingness  of  love  and  my  faith  in  a  life 
farther  on.  “Where  could  death  take  one  of  us 
that  the  other  could  not  follow?”  I  asked  him,  in 
strange  triumph. 

His  eyes  held  mine  a  long  minute.  His  face 
was  very  sad.  “I  am  not  sure  of  that.  I  have  no 
idea  of  what  we  shall  be  to  one  another  in  another 
life.  I  am  only  sure  that  we  are  all  things  to  each 
other  now.” 

An  inexpressible  sense  of  fear  took  hold  of 
me.  Chan-King  seemed  at  once  terribly  alien 
and  removed;  I  could  not  speak,  for  I  had  the 
feeling  of  calling  in  a  strange  language  across 
a  great  chasm.  I  said  nothing  for  fear  of  dis¬ 
tressing  him,  but  he  must  have  sensed  my  dis¬ 
quietude,  for  he  took  my  hands  and  held  them 

to  his  face  and  let  his  eyes  shine  upon  me. 

68 


IN  SHANGHAI 

“Don’t  look  like  that,”  he  said.  “We  have  much 
time  yet  to  think  of  eternity.”  But  from  the  day 
of  this  illness  the  shadow  was  never  once  re¬ 
moved  from  me. 

Now  we  were  lured  by  the  residential  charms 
of  the  French  Concession,  with  its  broad,  tree- 
lined  avenues  and  fresh,  wind-swept  spaces.  So 
we  took  a  new  house  in  a  terrace  fronting  on  Ave¬ 
nue  Joffre.  We  liked  our  large  rooms,  each  with 
its  tiled  fireplace,  its  polished  floors  laid  with 
Tientsin  rugs,  its  electric  lights.  There  was  a 
grassy  lawn  with  Chinese  orchids  and  a  border  of 
palms  and  magnolias,  and  just  around  the  corner 
from  us  was  a  public  garden  where,  to  Wilfred’s 
delight,  dozens  of  children  played  each  day 
under  the  care  of  their  respective  amahs.  Our 
staff  of  servants  was  now  increased  to  five  by  the 
addition  of  a  rickshaw  coolie  and  a  second 
amah. 

Chan-King  received  shortly  after  this  a  letter 

from  his  father,  the  first  communication  he  had 

had  from  his  family  since  our  marriage.  It  con- 

69 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

tained  an  invitation  to  return  home  for  a  visit, 
since  his  mother  wished  very  deeply  to  see  him 
again. 

“I  can  interpret  this  in  only  one  way,  Mar¬ 
garet,”  he  said  in  a  puzzled  tone.  “It  is  an  offer 
of  reconciliation.  That  means  that  they  do  not 
know  you  are  with  me.” 

“Go  and  see  for  yourself  what  it  is,”  I  told 
him.  For  I  would  have  consented,  for  his  sake, 
to  a  reconciliation  on  almost  any  terms.  I  had 
seen  enough  of  Chinese  family  life  to  understand 
the  powerful  bonds  of  affection  and  interest  that 
bind  the  clan  together,  and  I  felt  in  my  own  heart 
the  cruelty  of  breaking  those  between  mother 
and  son  and  brother  and  brother. 

“I  wrant  to  tell  them  about  you,”  Chan-King 
answered.  “This  is  my  opportunity.” 

Before  accepting  their  invitation,  Chan-King 

wrote  and  told  them  that  his  wife  was  with  him. 

And  their  replies  to  this  proved  him  right  in  his 

first  surmise.  His  family  knew  he  had  returned 

to  China  and,  having  heard  nothing  further  of 

70 


IN  SHANGHAI 

his  marriage,  had  supposed  that  it  was  all  over. 
This  was  not  exactly  a  surprising  conclusion  for 
them  to  reach.  More  than  one  foreign  woman 
has  refused  to  accompany  her  Chinese  husband 
home.  I  myself  came  in  contact  with  an  occa¬ 
sional  half-household,  in  which  a  Chinese  was 
held  in  China  by  his  business  affairs  while  his 
wife  waited  for  him  on  the  other  side  of  the 
world.  Sometimes,  too,  she  did  not  wait,  and  the 
marriage  ended  in  the  conventional  way — that 
is,  in  the  divorce  court.  Chan-King’s  people 
imagined  that  something  of  the  sort  had  oc¬ 
curred  to  him,  and  were  quite  ready  to  wipe 
out  old  scores  and  resume  the  ties  of  rela¬ 
tionship. 

After  having  written  the  initial  letter  of  recon¬ 
ciliation,  they  held  to  their  attitude  in  a  thor¬ 
oughbred  way,  only  amending  their  welcome  a 
trifle  by  requesting  him  to  visit  them  alone. 
Very  tactfully  and  gently  they  put  it  like  this: 
his  father  was  growing  old  and  any  sudden 

change  disturbed  him;  the  household  had  lately 

71 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

been  added  to  by  marriage  and  births,  and  he 
would  find  everything  very  much  more  comfort¬ 
able  if  he  should  come  alone. 

He  went,  firmly  resolved  to  change  the  mind 
of  his  family  toward  me.  And  I,  too,  was  anxious 
for  them  to  know  that  a  foreign  marriage  had 
not  harmed  Chan-King.  During  the  six  weeks 
of  his  absence  his  letters  were  cheerfully  non¬ 
committal,  though  he  spoke  of  his  happiness  in 
being  in  his  mother’s  house  again.  I  thought  a 
great  deal  about  that  house,  the  intricate  lives 
of  the  people  in  it  and  their  many  degrees  of 
kinship  and  authority.  Chan-King  had  told  me 
enough  to  give  me  a  fairly  clear  picture  of  them.- 
I  had  always  admired  their  ability  to  sustain  dif¬ 
ficult  relations  under  the  same  roof  with  the  ut¬ 
most  good  temper  and  mutual  courtesy. 

Yet  I  was  western  enough  to  feel  that  Chan- 

King  and  I  knew  each  other  better  and  had  been 

more  free  to  learn  each  other  thoroughly,  alone 

in  our  own  household,  which  was  growing  in 

quite  a  Chinese  fashion.  I  expected  my  second 

72 


IN  SHANGHAI 

child  and  looked  forward,  with  much  hope,  to 
the  new  life,  for  I  had  always  been  deeply  ma¬ 
ternal  and  wanted  several  children.  But  to 
Chan-King  and  me  our  love  for  each  other  was 
the  greatly  important  thing  in  life — the  reason 
for  all  the  rest  of  our  existence.  We  accepted 
the  fact  of  birth  as  naturally  as  we  did  the  change 
of  seasons.  Children  were  an  essential  to  our 
happiness,  but  not  the  dominant  essential.  We 
ordered  our  home  for  ourselves,  as  two  lovers 
who  had  elected  to  pass  their  life  together. 

Chan-King  expressed  our  views  thus:  “The 
Chinese  idea  is  that  the  family  is  the  end,  the 
children  the  means  of  keeping  it  up.  In  the 
West,  the  children  are  the  end,  and  the  home 
merely  the  means  of  keeping  them  up.  You  and 
I  have  it  perfectly  adjusted,  I  think — the  home 
is  for  all  of  us,  and  all  of  us  have  proper  places 
in  it.” 

Chan-King  returned  early  one  morning,  and  I 
knew,  from  my  first  glimpse  of  his  face,  that  his 
visit  had  been  a  fruitful  one.  I  flew  to  his 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

arms,  and,  as  he  kissed  me,  I  saw  that  his  eyes 
were  serene  and  contented. 

“How  is  vour  august  mother,  my  lord?"  I 
asked  him  with  a  bow. 

“My  mother  is  in  good  health  and  wishes  to 
meet  her  daughter-in-law,"  he  answered,  and.  in 
spite  of  the  bantering  tone.  I  knew  he  was  in 
earnest. 

I  wanted  to  know  how  this  change  of  feeling 
had  come  about. 

“When  I  told  them  of  you."  said  Chan-King, 
“my  mother  was  visibly  amazed.  ‘I  did  not 
understand!'  she  kept  repeating.  ‘I  did  not  un¬ 
derstand!’  And  before  I  left,  she  said  to  me.  ‘If 
she  is  all  you  tell  me  she  is.  why  do  you  not  bring 
her  here?'  I  didn’t  mention  the  fact  that  this 
was  our  lirst  invitation,  Margaret!  Should  you 
like  to  go.  my  dearest?" 

I  hesitated  a  moment.  “Yes.  but  not  yet,"  I 
answered. 

“We  will  not  go  for  a  while."  Chan-King  as¬ 
sured  me. 


74 


IN  SHANGHAI 


We  talked  a  great  deal  about  my  husband’s 
visit,  and  I  gained  new  light  on  the  actual  facts 
of  his  estrangement  from  his  family  and  the 
enormous  significance  that  his  marriage  assumed 
in  the  minds  of  his  Chinese  relatives. 

I  can  hardly  exaggerate  the  importance  of  the 
position  held  by  the  eldest  son  in  the  higher  class 
Chinese  household.  After  his  father,  he  is  the 
male  head  of  the  family.  His  wife  is  the  attend¬ 
ant  shadow,  the  never-failing  companion  of  his 
mother.  Our  phrase,  “A  man  marries,”  is  ex¬ 
pressed  in  Chinese  as  “He  leads  in  a  new 
woman.”  Under  the  old  regime  he  literally  did 
so,  for  he  invariably  brought  his  bride  to  his 
ancestral  home.  The  phrase  for  the  marriage  of 
a  girl  is,  “She  goes  forth  from  the  family.”  “A 
new  woman”  is  the  term  for  a  bride.  The  west¬ 
ern  education  of  many  young  men  of  the  Chinese 
upper  class  has  resulted  in  some  acute  readjust¬ 
ment  in  the  ancestral  households.  Often  these 
elder  sons  return,  marry  according  to  the  old  cus¬ 
tom  and  live  in  their  parental  homes.  But  often, 

75 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

too,  they  marry  advanced  Chinese  women,  set  up 
establishments  and  professions  of  their  own,  far 
from  their  native  cities,  and  live  after  semi-for- 
eign  ways. 

In  this  respect,  our  case  was  somewhat  typical. 
As  I  have  already  related,  Chan-King’s  mother 
had  been  looking  forward  for  years  to  the  mar¬ 
riage  of  her  eldest  son  with  the  little  Miss  Li- 
Ying.  She  had  expected  in  her  middle  age  the 
usual  release  of  the  Chinese  woman  from  the 
bonds  of  youth.  Having  been  a  faithful  and 
obedient  wife  and  daughter-in-law,  she  right¬ 
fully  expected  to  assume  authority  over  her 
family,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  her  son’s  wife. 
This  younger  woman  would  take  her  place  in 
the  long  chain  of  dutiful  daughters;  she  would 
help  to  welcome  guests;  she  would  keep  up  the 
family  shrines;  she  would  perform  all  manner  of 
household  duties  under  the  supervision  of  her 
mother-in-law.  On  the  death  of  her  husband’s 
mother,  she  would  become  the  woman  head  of 

the  family,  responsible  for  everything,  her  privi- 

76 


IN  SHANGHAI 

leges  and  authority  growing  with  her  years,  es¬ 
pecially  if  she  were  the  mother  of  sons.  Her 
great  mission  would  be  to  furnish  children  to  the 
clan,  in  order  that  the  ancestral  shrines  might 
never  be  without  worshipers.  I  explain  these 
matters  at  this  point  in  order  that  I  may  not  be 
mistaken  for  a  moment  when  I  tell  the  incident 
that  follows.  By  this  time,  I  had  lived  long 
enough  in  China  to  be  almost  thoroughly  orien¬ 
talized,  in  so  far  as  my  sympathies  were  con¬ 
cerned,  at  least,  and  yet,  when  Chan-King,  after 
talking  for  a  while  about  the  events  of  his  visit 
home,  came  to  a  full  pause  and  said  uncertainly, 
“There  is  one  thing  I  wish  to  tell  you,  but  I  am 
not  sure  you  will  understand,”  I  was  a  trifle  ap¬ 
prehensive. 

But  I  answered  at  once:  “Of  course  I  shall 
understand.  China  has  been  kind  to  me.  What 
have  I  to  fear?” 

Chan-King  then  went  on  deliberately:  “Not 

until  I  saw  my  mother  again  did  I  understand 

that  I  had  done  a  really  cruel  thing  to  her,  in  de- 

77 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

priving  her  of  a  daughter-in-law  on  whom  she 
could  lean  in  her  old  age.  Oh,  Margaret, 
woman’s  lot  is  not  easy,  with  all  the  complexities 
of  parents  and  brothers  and  children!  And  I 
would  have  atoned  for  my  share  in  all  this  if  I 
could — but  of  course  there  was  nothing  I  could 
do,  nothing  at  all.” 

And  very  calmly  he  told  me  that  shortly  after 
his  arrival  at  home  his  mother  had  conferred  with 
him  seriously  on  her  need  of  a  daughter-in-law. 
In  accordance  with  ancient  customs  she  wished 
him  to  take  a  Chinese  secondary  wife,  who  would 
live  in  the  family  home,  who  would  be,  in  a 
fashion,  proxy  for  me  in  the  role  of  daughter-in- 
law.  Chan-King’s  mother  offered  to  arrange  this 
marriage  for  him  and  assured  him  that  the  sec¬ 
ondary  wife  and  her  children  would  be  well 
cared  for  and  treated  kindly  during  his  long  ab¬ 
sences. 

I  listened  incredulously,  and  the  question  I 

could  not  ask  was  in  my  eyes.  I  knew,  of  course, 

that  the  custom  of  taking  secondary  wives  was 

78 


IN  SHANGHAI 

not  unusual  among  wealthy  families  in  China, 
even  where  both  wives  lived  under  the  same  roof. 
But  I  had  given  it  only  the  most  casual  thought. 
And  not  once  had  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  prob¬ 
lem  would  touch  my  life.  Brought  suddenly 
level  with  it,  I  suffered  a  shock  at  the  very  foun¬ 
dation  of  my  nature.  I  could  not  think,  of 
course,  in  the  moment  that  followed  my  hus¬ 
band’s  recital.  I  only  felt  a  great  roaring  tide 
of  pain  rising  about  me,  a  sense  of  complete  help¬ 
lessness,  such  as  I  have  never  known  before  or 
since.  I  wonder  now  at  my  instant  subjective 
readiness  to  believe  that  my  husband  had  con¬ 
formed  to  this  custom  of  his  country;  that  he 
had  shaken  off  his  western  training  at  his  first  re¬ 
newed  contact  with  the  traditional  habits  of  his 
race. 

“Did —  you - ?’  I  asked,  finally,  and 

stopped. 

He  came  to  me  instantly,  his  arms  about  me. 
When  he  saw  the  distress  in  my  face,  he  frowned, 

with  an  odd,  remorseful  twist  of  the  brows. 

79 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

'‘I  wonder  that  you  ask,”  he  said.  “How  could 
I  come  back  to  you — and  to  your  loyalty  and 
trust — with  the  shadow  of  that  deception  be¬ 
tween  us?  I  made  it  very  clear  to  my  mother 
that  I  would  never  have  any  wife  but  you.  It’s 
you  and  I  together,  dear  one,  and  no  one  else  so 
long  as  we  both  shall  live.” 

And  his  words  had  the  solemn  sound  of  a  vow 
renewed.  This  high  honesty  of  Chan-King’s 
with  me  was  a  rock  on  which  I  founded  my  faith. 
And  his  final  repudiation  of  an  accepted  form 
among  his  people  represented  a  genuine  sacri¬ 
fice  on  his  part,  so  far  as  his  material  welfare  was 
concerned.  As  generously  and  unhesitatingly 
as  he  had  made  the  first  one,  at  our  marriage,  he 
laid  the  second  votive  offering  on  the  altar  of  our 
love.  He  had,  you  see,  according  to  the  view  of 
his  father  and  mother,  hopelessly  injured  them  in 
his  marriage.  Above  all,  he  had  denied  in  him¬ 
self  the  great  racial  instinct  of  the  Chinese  to 
obey  his  parents.  If  he  wished  to  please  them, 

here  was  his  last  opportunity.  The  taking  of  a 

so 


IN  SHANGHAI 

Chinese  secondary  wife  would  have  been  a  com¬ 
plete  atonement  in  their  eyes.  At  the  same  time 
it  would  have  meant  his  instant  restoration  to 
his  rightful  place  among  them — first  in  their  af¬ 
fections  and  inheritance.  The  family  assistance 
would  have  placed  him  at  once  in  the  position 
toward  which,  without  it,  he  would  probably 
have  to  struggle  for  years. 

And  later  I  understood  how  very  easily  he 
might  have  complied  without  my  needing  ever 
to  know  of  the  fact.  Indeed,  I  could  have  lived 
in  his  mother’s  house  with  a  second  wife  and 
never  have  suspected  that  she  was  there  in  that 
position,  so  securely  welded  and  impassive  is  the 
clan  sense,  the  reserve  and  remoteness  of  the  per¬ 
sonal  relation  when  the  family  peace  and  dignity 
are  to  be  considered. 

Some  of  these  matters  I  had  been  aware  of 

since  my  life  in  China  began,  some  of  them  I 

learned  that  day  in  talking  with  Chan-King  and 

others,  as  I  have  said,  I  discovered  gradually 

afterward.  But  from  that  day,  certainly,  our  re- 

81 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

lation  subtly  shifted  and  settled  and  crystallized. 
We  both  became  forever  certain  that  we  could 
not  fail  each  other  in  any  smallest  thing.  Into 
my  heart  came  a  warmth  of  repose,  like  a  steadily 
burning  lamp.  We  were  assured  of  our  love  be¬ 
yond  any  possibility  of  doubt,  ever  again.  And 
for  a  time  we  experienced  a  renascence  of  youth¬ 
ful  happiness,  a  fine  fervor  of  renewed  hopes  and 
ambitions,  as  though  spring  had  come  again  mi¬ 
raculously,  when  we  had  expected  October. 

The  family  letters  came  now  regularly  to 
Chan-King,  with  always  a  kindly  message  for  me. 
Evidently  relations  were  to  be  resumed  on  the 
plane  of  a  good  friendship,  nothing  more.  But 
that  was  so  much  more  than  we  had  dared  to  hope 
for  that  we  were  perfectly  happy  to  have  it  so. 

Chan-King  must  have  mentioned  his  slowly 
failing  health,  for  his  mother  sent  a  worried  let¬ 
ter  to  him  and  asked  him  to  come  home  for  a 
while  once  more.  Chan-King  decided  that  his 
affairs  would  not  warrant  his  absence  and  wrote 
her  to  that  effect. 


S2 


IN  SHANGHAI 

One  morning  as  I  sat  on  the  sun-porch,  sewing, 
Ah  Ching  appeared  suddenly  before  me. 

“Master’s  mother,  he  downstairs,”  he  an¬ 
nounced  calmly.  I  gazed  at  him  without  under¬ 
standing. 

“What  do  you  say4?” 

Ah  Ching  came  nearer.  He  held  up  one  hand 
and  counted  his  words  off  on  his  fingers  slowly. 
“Missee-sabe-master-have-got-one  mother4?”  he 
inquired  patiently. 

“Yes,  yes!” 

“Well,  he  just  now  have  come.  He  down- 
stairs ! 

I  got  to  my  feet.  I  was  more  frightened  and 

nervous  than  I  had  ever  been.  I  remembered  to 

be  grateful.  I  was  wearing  complete  Chinese 

dress — a  black  skirt  and  blue  velvet  jacket.  This 

fact  assumed  an  amusing  importance  in  my  mind 

as  I  stood  there,  struggling  to  get  myself  in  hand. 

I  had  planned  this  meeting  a  thousand  times, 

and  now  that  it  was  fairly  upon  me,  I  was  totally 

without  resource.  I  progressed  downstairs  con- 

83 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

fusedly,  running  a  few  swift  steps  and  then  stop¬ 
ping  short  and  beginning  again  slowly.  If  Chan- 
King  had  been  there,  I  should  have  fled  to  him 
and  left  the  entire  situation  in  his  hands;  but  I 
was  alone  and  certain  of  one  thing  only — I  meant 
to  win  the  love  of  my  Chinese  mother  if  I  could. 
Subjectively,  all  the  tales  I  had  heard  of  Chinese 
mothers-in-law  must  have  impressed  me  more 
than  I  had  admitted,  for  I  remembered  something 
Chan-King  had  told  me  long  before:  “I  cannot 
describe  to  you  the  importance  of  the  mother  in 
the  Chinese  household.  She  is  a  complete  auto¬ 
crat,  with  almost  final  authority  over  her  sons, 
daughters-in-law,  servants,  relatives,  everybody 
except  her  husband,  who  is  usually  absent  on  his 
business.  Her  old  age  is  a  complete  reversal  of 
the  restraint  and  discipline  of  her  youth.” 

I  stopped  short  at  the  door  of  the  drawing¬ 
room.  I  saw  my  husband’s  mother  for  the  first 
time.  She  had  become  to  me  a  personality  of 
almost  legendary  grandeur,  and  I  felt  a  little 

wave  of  surprise  go  over  me  that  she  looked 

84 


IN  SHANGHAI 

somehow  so  real  and  alive  and  genuine.  She  sat 
in  a  big,  tall-backed  chair,  her  hands  spread  flat 
on  her  knees.  Her  face  was  the  face  of  the 
young  mother  in  the  photograph  Chan-King  had 
shown  me,  only  grown  older  and  a  trifle  more 
severe.  She  was  dressed  in  black  brocade,  its 
stiff  folds  and  precise  creases  accentuating  her 
dignity.  Under  the  edges  of  her  skirt  glimmered 
her  tiny  gray  shoes,  embroidered  in  red  and 
green.  At  her  side  stood  the  male  relative  who 
had  accompanied  her — a  Chinese  gentleman  of 
the  old  school,  in  a  long  gown  of  dark  silk.  Be¬ 
hind  her  chair  stood  a  maid  and  two  men-ser¬ 
vants. 

I  knew  that  she  spoke  no  English,  and  as  yet  I 
had  no  knowledge  of  her  southern  dialect.  There 
was  a  sharp  pause  in  the  dead-silent  room  while 
we  regarded  each  other. 


85 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 


Ill 

FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 


I  clasped  my  hands  in  the  Chinese  way,  smiled 
and  bowed.  My  Chinese  mother  rose  at  once  and 
took  a  step  toward  me,  balancing  on  her  tiny  feet 
with  the  aid  of  a  thick,  gold-headed  cane.  I  saw 
that  she  was  unusually  tall.  Then,  surprisingly, 
she  extended  her  hand,  American  fashion,  and  I 
shook  it,  the  eyes  of  each  of  us  still  searching  the 
other’s  face.  I  saw  in  hers  the  look  I  needed  for 
reassurance — the  mingled  kindness  and  appre¬ 
hension — a  trace  of  the  anxiety  that  I  am  sure 
was  the  very  counterpart  of  my  own  expression. 
I  knew  then  that  her  heart  was  no  more  certain 
than  mine  was,  and  that  this  meeting  was  as  im¬ 
portant  to  her  as  it  was  to  me. 

Ah  Ching  brought  forward  my  chair  and  we 

sat  down  together,  smiling  at  each  other,  letting 

our  gestures  speak  for  us.  Finally  she  stretched 

forth  her  right  hand,  palm  down,  measuring  the 

89 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

height  of  a  small  child  from  the  floor,  inclining 
her  head  toward  me,  her  eyebrows  up  in  a  ques¬ 
tion.  I  made  a  pillow  of  my  two  hands,  laid  my 
head  upon  it,  eyes  closed,  and  then  pointed  up. 
We  were  both  delighted  at  this  simple  panto¬ 
mime.  The  elderly  man — her  cousin — looked 
pleased  in  sympathy  and  even  the  three  solemn 
servants  smiled  a  little.  She  asked  me  in  ges¬ 
tures  where  my  husband  was.  I  waved  widely 
and  comprehensively  toward  the  street,  in  the 
general  direction  of  the  city.  She  nodded,  set¬ 
tling  back  a  trifle,  drawing  a  long  breath.  We 
had  reached  the  end  of  our  power  to  converse 
without  the  aid  of  an  interpreter. 

When  I  heard  Chan-King’s  ring  at  the  gate,  I 
hurried  out  to  meet  him  with  the  news.  He  wras 
even  more  excited  than  I  was  and  hastened  ahead 
of  me  to  the  house.  I  walked  very  slowly  in  or¬ 
der  that  they  might  have  their  first  greeting  un¬ 
disturbed,  and,  when  I  arrived,  they  were 
beaming  upon  each  other  and  talking  the  South 

Province  dialect  over  a  very  sleepy  and  cherubic 

90 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

infant,  whom  Chan-King,  with  paternal  pride, 
had  ordered  down  to  greet  his  grandmother  at 
once. 

The  retinue  settled,  Chan-King  informed  me 
that  our  mother  would  remain  with  us  for  six 
weeks.  During  this  time,  I  learned  the  art  of 
pantomime  beyond  anything  I  had  ever  hoped 
for  in  one  of  my  undemonstrative  nature.  My 
Chinese  mother  and  I  conversed  with  eyebrows, 
hands,  smiles,  noddings  and  shakings  of  the  head, 
much  turning  of  the  eyes.  I  had  an  instant  af¬ 
fection  and  admiration  for  her,  and  she  adopted 
toward  me  a  gently  confidential  attitude  that 
pleased  me  very  much. 

She  had  brought  presents  for  us,  in  the  Chinese 
way:  for  me,  a  delicately  wrought  chain  of  Chi¬ 
nese  gold  in  a  box  of  carved  sandalwood;  for 
Wilfred,  a  dozen  suits  of  Chinese  clothes  in  the 
bright  patterns  worn  by  children  of  the  Orient, 
and  so  becoming  to  the  proud,  wee  man  that,  ar¬ 
rayed  in  them,  he  seemed  already  to  be  coming 

into  his  heritage.  She  also  brought  great  ham- 

91 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


pers  of  fresh  fruits — pomeloes,  lichees  and  drag- 
on’s-eyes — and  countless  jars  of  preserved  fish 
and  meats  and  vegetables,  which  had  been  Chan- 
King’s  favorites  when  he  was  a  boy  at  home. 

Madame  Liang  had  the  Chinese  woman’s  love 
for  shopping.  Accompanied  by  her  cousin  and 
the  servants,  we  went  from  silk  merchant  to  por¬ 
celain  dealer,  and  from  brass  worker  to  rug 
weaver,  gathering  treasures.  Though  she  carried 
on  most  of  her  negotiations  through  her  cousin, 
she  bargained  with  a  firmness  and  a  sense  of 
values  that  I  admired  very  much.  In  the  silk 
shops  she  bought  marvelous  brocaded  satins  and 
embroidered  silks  and  she  had  me  select  the  pat¬ 
tern  I  wanted  for  myself.  Though  she  preserved 
most  carefully  the  distinctive  features  of  the 
dress  of  her  own  province,  she  was  much  inter¬ 
ested  in  Shanghai  styles  and  examined  m)'  ward¬ 
robe  critically,  noting  the  short  sleeves  with 
tight-fitting  undersleeves  and  the  skirts  with 
seven  plaits — not  five,  as  in  Canton,  for  exam¬ 
ple — at  each  side. 


92 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 
Notwithstanding  the  popular  western  fancy 
that  fashions  never  change  in  China  the  Chinese 
woman  is  painstakingly  particular  as  to  the  exact 
length  and  fullness — or  scantiness — of  her  coats, 
skirts  and  trousers.  She  is  carefully  precise 
about  the  width  of  bias  bands  or  braid  or  lace 
that  she  uses  for  trimming,  the  number  and  ar¬ 
rangement  of  fastenings,  the  shape  and  height 
of  her  collar.  All  of  these  details  vary  as  tyran¬ 
nically  from  season  to  season — under  Shanghai 
guidance — as  certain  style  features  do  with  us 
under  the  leadership  of  New  York  or  Paris. 
Moreover,  as  against  our  four  seasons,  the  fash¬ 
ion  devotee  of  China  takes  account  of  eight,  each 
with  its  appropriate  style  and  weight  of  cloth¬ 
ing. 

At  home  Mother  sewed  a  great  deal,  using  her 

hands  gracefully  and  very  competently  in  spite 

of  the  long  curved  finger-nails  on  her  left  hand. 

My  American  sewing-machine  fascinated  her. 

She  had  an  excellent  hand-power  machine  at 

home,  Chan-King  explained,  but  mine  worked 

93 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


with  a  treadle  and  she  wished  to  try  it.  I  took 
the  tiny,  brightly  shod  feet  in  my  hands  and  set 
one  forward  and  one  backward  on  the  iron  trellis. 
And  she  moved  them  very  well,  alternately,  and 
ran  several  seams  with  energy. 

Chan-King,  his  mother  and  I  went  to  Chinese 
cafes  together  and  Madame  Liang  was  pleased 
and  amused  to  see  that  I  not  only  used  chop¬ 
sticks  with  ease  but  had  a  real  taste  for  Chinese 
food.  We  used  to  treat  ourselves  to  all  sorts  of 
epicurean  dishes:  spiced  chicken  and  duck, 
shark’s  fins,  bird’s-nest  soup  with  pigeon  eggs 
(my  favorite  delicacy),  seaweed  and  bamboo 
shoots,  candied  persimmons,  lotus-seeds  and  mil¬ 
let  pudding  with  almond  tea. 

Once,  in  a  roof-garden  cafe,  where  I  was  wear¬ 
ing  American  clothes,  my  use  of  chopsticks 
aroused  considerable  interest  among  neighboring 
groups  of  diners,  and  stray  comments  reached 
us,  for  the  Chinese  are  always  pleased  to  see 
foreigners  familiar  with  their  customs.  “No 

doubt  she  is  a  missionary  lady,”  a  young  woman 

94 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 


remarked  in  my  husband’s  native  dialect.  Hear¬ 
ing  and  understanding,  Mother  immediately 
said,  in  clear,  gracious  tones,  “My  son,  perhaps 
your  wife  would  like  to  have  some  American 
food  now.”  Chan-King  translated  for  me  both 
comment  and  suggestion,  and  I  felt  pleased  to 
learn  that,  at  any  rate,  my  Chinese  mother  was 
not  ashamed,  in  a  public  place,  to  acknowledge 
her  American  daughter. 

Mother  was  fond  of  the  drama  and,  since 
Shanghai  had  some  excellent  theaters,  we  made 
up  several  parties  during  her  stay. 

The  great  semicircular  stage  on  which  a  fam¬ 
ous  old  historical  play  that  we  saw  was  acted, 
was  hung  with  gorgeous  embroideries,  laid  with 
a  thick  Peking  rug  of  immense  size  and  bril¬ 
liantly  lighted  by  electricity — as  was  the  entire 
theater.  The  actors  wore  the  magnificent  official 
and  military  robes  of  an  early  dynasty.  As  on 
the  Elizabethan  stage,  women’s  parts  were  taken 
by  men,  who  achieved  by  cleverly  constructed 

shoes  the  effect  of  bound  feet.  I  found  the  deaf- 

95 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

ening  drums  and  gongs  a  little  trying,  at  mo¬ 
ments,  and  the  crude  property  make-shifts  some¬ 
what  incongruous  with  the  wonderfully  elabor¬ 
ate  hangings  and  costumes.  But,  being  familiar 
with  the  story,  I  understood  the  action  and  so 
evidently  enjoyed  it  that  Mother  was  surprised 
anew,  as  Chan-King  afterward  told  me.  We  sat 
in  our  balcony  box,  above  the  vague  tiers  of  lower 
seats  packed  with  a  restless  audience  of  men, 
women  and  many  children  in  the  arms  of  their 
amahs.  On  the  wide  front  rail  of  our  box  was 
the  inevitable  pot  of  tea,  with  room  also  for  such 
fruits,  sugar-cane,  melon-seeds,  or  meat-and-rice 
dishes  as  we  wished  to  purchase  from  the  endless 
variety  offered  by  eager  boys  in  round  caps  and 
blue  cotton  gowns.  Now  and  then  an  attendant 
came  with  a  huge  teakettle  to  refill  our  teapot, 
and  once  he  offered  us  the  usual  steaming  hot 
towels  for  sticky  fingers.  Chan-King  waved 
these  away  energetically.  “Awful  custom,”  he 
said  to  me.  “Unhygienic.  How  can  they  do 

it?’  And  he  added  something  of  the  kind  to  his 

96 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 


mother  in  Chinese.  She  regarded  him  with  com¬ 
prehension,  a  tiny  gleam  of  superior  wisdom  in 
her  eyes.  But  she  made  no  reply. 

She  had  taken  a  fancy  to  Wilfred,  who  by  this 
time  had  a  fair  vocabulary  of  Chinese,  which  he 
always  used  in  talking  to  his  amah.  He  was  a 
handsome  child,  typically  Chinese,  very  charm¬ 
ing  in  his  manner,  very  fond  of  his  amah  and  his 
indulgent  grandmother.  Madame  Liang  would 
take  his  chin  in  her  hands  and  study  his  features 
intently,  nodding  her  head  with  approval.  Then 
she  would  stroke  his  round  black  poll  and  give 
him  melon-seeds  or  almonds  from  her  pocket. 
Wilfred  used  a  weird  mixture  of  dialects — a  con¬ 
fusion  of  Mandarin  and  the  Shanghai  vernacu¬ 
lar,  with  a  dash  of  Cantonese  from  his  amah. 
Madame  Liang  set  out  patiently  to  teach  him  her 
own  dialect  as  well. 

When  her  visit  was  ended,  our  mother  said  to 
Chan-King,  “This  is  a  Chinese  house,  with  a  Chi¬ 
nese  wife  in  it.  Everything  is  Chinese.  I  could 

never  have  believed  it  without  seeing,  for  I 

97 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

thought  your  wife  was  a  western  woman.  I 
am  happy.”  And  she  told  him  again  that  we 
must  come  and  visit  with  her,  for  she  needed 
us. 

Chan-King’s  father,  a  member  of  an  old,  es¬ 
tablished  firm  in  the  import  and  export  trade  in 
the  Philippines,  was  awray,  looking  after  his  busi¬ 
ness  or  exchanging  visits  with  friends  of  his  own 
age  and  rank.  His  home-comings  were  in  the 
nature  of  a  vacation.  The  management  of  the 
household  depended  on  Madame  Liang. 

As  she  talked,  I  realized  by  her  face,  by  Chan- 
King’s  answers,  by  all  that  I  knew  of  Chinese 
family  life,  that  we  were  a  part  of  that  clan  and 
should  be  so  always.  A  hint  of  the  solidarity  I 
now  feel  with  my  husband’s  family  came  to  me. 
We  were  not  separate  from  them;  nor  should  we 
be. 

After  our  mother  was  gone,  Chan-King  said 

something  of  this  sort  to  me,  quoting  what  she 

had  said  about  my  not  being  western.  “But  I 

love  you  to  be  western  in  this  sense,”  he  told  me, 

98 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

“that  you  and  I  have  companionship  and  free¬ 
dom  and  equality  in  our  love.  That  is  what 
makes  me  happiest.” 

Before  Chan-King  and  I  closed  the  house  in 
Shanghai  to  depart  for  the  southern  hills,  our 
second  son,  Alfred,  was  born.  An  American 
woman  asked  me,  when  he  was  about  six  weeks 
old,  if  I  did  not  feel  a  sense  of  alienation  at  the 
sight  of  the  wee,  oriental  face  at  my  breast. 
Quite  simply  and  truthfully  I  answered,  no.  My 
husband  was  not  in  any  way  alien  to  me.  How 
then,  could  our  child  be  so1? 

His  coming  provided  me  with  a  welcome  ex¬ 
cuse  to  remain  at  home  quietly  for  a  short  while. 
I  now  attempted  to  learn,  at  the  same  time,  both 
Mandarin  and  the  dialect  of  Chan-King’s  prov¬ 
ince — a  method  of  study  that  hampered  me  con¬ 
stantly  at  first.  But  my  husband  was  an  encour¬ 
aging  teacher,  and  I  began  uncertainly  to  use  my 
new  knowledge,  trying  it  mostly  on  my  young 
son  Wilfred,  who  was  the  real  linguist  of  the 

family.  He  took  my  Chinese  very  seriously.  I 

99 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


cannot  say  so  much  for  Chan-King,  who  was 
greatly  amused  at  my  inflection. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  year,  I  decided  to  take 
a  place  as  teacher  of  English  and  history  in  a 
Chinese  girls’  high  school.  Chan-King  was  sur¬ 
prised  when  I  told  him  that  I  wished  to  teach  but 
he  offered  no  objection,  and  watched  with  inter¬ 
est  my  progress  through  the  year.  I  loved  my 
teaching.  Still  more  I  loved  the  girls  in  my 
classes.  Collectively  and  individually  I  found 
them  supremely  worth  while  in  spirit  and  mind. 
I  cannot  say  how  lovely  the  young  womanhood 
of  China  seemed  to  me.  I  began  to  yearn  for 
a  daughter,  and  when,  toward  the  close  of  the 
second  term,  I  found  that  I  might,  perhaps,  have 
my  heart’s  desire,  I  realized  that  my  husband 
shared  it. 

In  the  early  fall,  our  mother  wTOte  and  asked 
us  to  come  south  for  the  cold  season.  She  also 
expressed  the  hope  that  the  coming  grandchild 
might  be  born  in  her  own  province.  Chan-King 
had  been  encouragingly  strong  for  over  a  year, 

~  ioo 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

but  he  had  always  found  the  northern  winters 
hard.  We  decided  that  the  time  had  come  to  ful¬ 
fil  our  promise  of  visiting  the  ancestral  home. 
Chan-King  secured  six  months’  leave  of  ab¬ 
sence. 

Within  ten  days  we  had  closed  our  affairs  tem¬ 
porarily,  dismissed  the  servants,  with  the  excep¬ 
tion  of  the  amah  and  the  faithful  Ah  Ching,  got 
our  boxes  together  and  bidden  our  friends  fare¬ 
well.  The  leaves  were  falling  on  the  avenue; 
the  plants  were  shriveled  at  the  edges  on  the  sun 
porch;  the  winds  blew  ominously  shrill  under  the 
eaves.  Chan-King  grew  pale  and  began  to  cough 
again.  Out  of  the  teeth  of  the  terrible  Shanghai 
winter  we  fled  into  the  hospitable  softness  of  the 
South. 

By  a  large  steamship  we  started  out  on  what 
was  ordinarily  a  brief  journey.  But  by  those 
war-time  schedules,  changes  and  delays  were  the 
invariable  rule.  After  three  unforeseen  changes 
and  as  many  delays  we  reached  a  port  just  over 
the  line  in  my  husband’s  province.  There  we 

101 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

stopped,  intending  to  go  on  three  days  later  by 
the  little,  battered,  tramp  steamer  that  puffed 
noisily  at  the  dock,  putting  off  dried  fruits  and 
dyes,  taking  on  rice  and  cloth  and  sandalwood. 
But  we  did  not  go  on,  as  it  happened.  Instead, 
a  tiny,  smiling,  competent  woman  physician, 
wearing  the  southern  costume  and  possessed  of 
a  curious  fund  of  practical  wisdom  in  medical 
matters,  attended  me  in  her  native  hospital  at 
the  birth  of  our  daughter  Alicia. 

On  a  vaguely  gray,  gently  stimulating  winter 
morning,  ten  days  later,  our  bouncing  little  ship 
— for  I  had  cajoled  Chan-King  into  allowing  me 
to  travel — stood  to,  out  from  port,  and  sampans 
came  to  meet  us.  Like  giant  fish,  bobbing  and 
dipping  and  swaying  upon  the  waves,  these  sam¬ 
pans  with  their  great  eyes  painted  on  each  side 
of  the  prow  and  their  curious,  up-curved  sterns, 
came  toward  us  in  a  gala-fleet,  rowed  by  lean, 
over-muscled  men  in  faded  blue  cotton  garments. 
I  was  very  gay  and  much  exhilarated  by  the  soft 

sunshine  that  broke  through  the  mist  as  I  climbed 

102 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

down  with  Chan-King’s  help  into  one  of  these 
boats. 

The  harbor  was  busy  with  small  craft — flat- 
bottomed  gigs  or  baggage-boats  besides  the 
junks,  whose  square  brown  sails  swung  creaking 
in  the  wind.  Two  Chinese  men-of-war  rose  over 
us,  their  vast,  bulky  sides  painted  battle-ship 
gray. 

Out  and  beyond,  an  island  not  more  than  a 
mile  long  turned  its  irregular  profile  toward  us, 
a  long  mass  of  huge  gray  boulders  jutting  ab¬ 
ruptly  from  a  sparkling  sea.  As  we  were  being 
rowed  in  to  the  mainland,  we  were  near  enough 
to  the  island  to  see  quite  plainly  the  tile-roofed 
houses  surrounded  by  arched  verandas,  repeated 
again  and  again  in  long,  undulating  lines  that 
gave  a  pleasantly  lacy  effect.  The  island  was 
shaded  with  trees  in  winter  foliage,  not  the  bril¬ 
liant  green  of  summer,  but  the  sage-green  and 
pale  tan  of  November.  Through  this  intermit¬ 
tent  curtain  the  walls  of  the  houses  shone  in  dull 

blue  and  coral  pink  and  clear  gray.  Jagged  cacti 

103 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

shot  up  among  the  bulbous  rocks  and  everywhere 
the  scarlet  poinsettia  set  the  hills  aglow  with 
patches  of  brilliant  color.  I  loved  this  island  in¬ 
stantly.  I  said  to  Chan-King,  “This  is  our  Is¬ 
land  of  the  Blest,  where  we  shall  live  when  we 
are  old.” 

At  the  jetty,  Ah  Ching  went  up  to  hail  sedan- 
chair  bearers,  and  soon  I  was  borne  rapidly  along 
a  few  yards  ahead  of  my  husband’s  chair. 

I  was  filled  with  a  delicious  elation  at  being 
in  Chan-King’s  province,  so  near  to  the  very  vil¬ 
lage  that  he  knew  as  a  little  boy.  With  enormous 
curiosity,  I  peeped  through  the  curtain-flaps, 
which  were  transparent  from  within.  We  were 
passing  through  the  town  that  lay  along  the 
water’s  edge — a  bright,  open  little  place,  where 
the  small  houses,  with  curved  tiled  roofs,  hugged 
the  ground.  We  went  through  the  crooked 
streets,  which  were  really  nothing  more  than 
broad  paths,  at  a  steady  pace.  We  left  the 
ragged  edges  of  the  town  and  began  to  ascend 

the  hills.  I  raised  my  curtains  a  trifle  and  ven- 

104 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

tured  to  look  out  freely.  Emotion  surged  up  in 
me.  I  wished  to  cry  for  joy  in  this  home-coming, 
for  it  was  our  real  home-coming  together,  and  I 
felt  a  secret  share  in  all  the  life  my  husband  had 
known  here. 

Up  the  narrow,  twisting  path  we  wound,  to¬ 
ward  the  hills,  which  were  covered  with  a  smoky, 
amber  mist.  Scattered  closely  along  the  upward 
road,  apart  from  the  dwellings,  were  small  ter¬ 
races  enclosing  plots  of  cultivated  ground,  filled 
with  growing  things.  Wherever  the  folk  could 
find  a  lush,  flat  place  on  the  stony  hills,  robbed 
by  deforestation  of  all  but  grass,  they  had 
planted  their  vegetables.  These  little  patches 
of  color,  coaxed  by  thrifty  gardeners  out  of  the 
soil  washed  into  the  hill-pockets,  added  a  festive, 
humorous  note  to  the  winter  landscape,  other¬ 
wise  so  brown  and  sear.  I  thought  frivolously 
of  a  solemn  giant  wearing  his  party  nosegays. 
The  hills  billowed  away  immensely,  until  they 
were  silhouettes  against  the  dull  orange  and  ashy 

purple  of  the  morning  sun  struggling  through 

105 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

the  clouds.  Solid,  steeply  curved,  narrow 
bridges  of  stone  made  us  a  path  over  the  fre¬ 
quent  streams  that  rushed  downward  to  the 
valley. 

Here  we  came  full  upon  the  ancestral  village 
of  my  husband’s  family.  It  lay,  compact  and 
many-roofed,  upon  the  side  of  a  hill,  as  intri¬ 
cately  woven  and  inevitable-looking  as  a  colony 
of  birds’  nests,  as  naturally  a  part  of  the  earth  as 
though  it  had  sprung  from  planted  seeds.  Rows 
of  walls  ran  along  the  main  thoroughfare.  There 
were  few  people  astir  yet  and  the  doors  were 
closed  in  all  the  low-eaved  plaster  and  stone 
houses. 

Our  chairs  were  set  down  before  a  tall,  hooded 
gate  in  a  wall  of  stone-gray.  Ah  Ching  knocked. 
The  gates  were  opened,  and  servants  came  hur¬ 
rying  out,  accompanied  by  three  leaping  black 
Chow-dogs,  which  barked  in  frantic  challenge 
till  Chan-King  spoke  to  them  and  changed  their 
menace  into  joyous  welcome. 

We  entered  a  spacious  courtyard  and  crossed 

106 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 
an  exquisite  garden,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  I 
saw  in  China.  An  artificial  lake  rippled  plac¬ 
idly,  disturbed  only  by  the  darting  goldfish. 
Laurel-  and  magnolia-trees  darkened  the  paths. 
A  thicket  of  bamboo  wavered  and  cast  its  reflec¬ 
tion  in  the  water  at  the  edge  of  the  lake. 

Chan-King  helped  me  from  the  chair  and  to¬ 
gether  we  passed  into  the  main  hall  through  the 
wide-flung  doors.  Madame  Liang,  early  ap¬ 
prized  of  our  arrival,  was  standing  there,  and  my 
first  sight  of  her  gave  me  a  renewed  sense  of 
home-coming.  I  was  dimly  aware  of  a  large  hall, 
at  the  back  of  which  stood  a  high  altar,  with 
wreaths  of  sweet-smelling  smoke  rising  in 
straight  columns  before  lettered  tablets  and  bril¬ 
liant  images  under  glass  cases.  The  glitter  of 
golden  and  scarlet  embroideries  against  the  wall 
splintered  the  dimness  with  rays  of  light  like 
sunshine  through  a  prism.  Heavily  carved 
blackwood  chairs  with  tea-tables  and  also  mar¬ 
ble-topped  stools  with  gay,  brocaded  cushions 

were  ranged  about  the  room. 

107 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

We  passed  through  this  main  hall  into  the 
apartment  of  Madame  Liang,  where  I  was  given 
a  chair,  and  I  sat,  suddenly  remembering  that  I 
was  very  tired. 

Other  members  of  the  family,  distant  relatives 
and  first  cousins,  and  guests,  all  women,  came 
in  and  I  was  presented  to  them.  Madame 
Springtime,  wife  of  the  second  son,  did  first  hon¬ 
ors  for  the  family.  She  was  so  very  youthful — 
only  seventeen — and  so  wistfully  other-worldly 
that  among  those  mature  housewives,  clever  and 
practical  managers  of  their  households  and  hus¬ 
bands’  estates,  she  seemed  like  a  branch  of  peach- 
bloom.  In  festal  garb  of  jade-green  and  laven¬ 
der — embroidered  shoes  on  her  tiny  feet  and  an 
embroidered  head-dress  crowning  her  shining 
black  hair  and  framing  the  oval  of  her  shy,  smil¬ 
ing  face,  with  its  sloe-black  eyes — she  came  bear¬ 
ing  a  lacquered  tray  and  presenting  to  each  of 
us  sweet  tea,  in  cups  of  finest  porcelain  with 
standards  and  covers  of  silver  and  with  tiny  sil¬ 
ver  spoons  having  flower-shaped  bowls. 

108 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

The  pretty  little  tea  ceremony  was  then 
repeated  by  various  members  of  the  family, 
while  the  small  sons  were  given  hot  milk 
and  cakes.  An  eager  group  gathered  about 
the  tiny  new  daughter,  still  sleeping  peace¬ 
fully. 

A  bubbling,  busy  little  lady,  about  the  age  of 
Madame  Liang,  leaned  over  me,  with  a  quizzical 
smile,  and  bobbed  her  gay,  pretty  head  emphat¬ 
ically  at  me  when  my  mother  introduced  her  as 
Madame  Chau.  Elaborately  dressed  in  rich  col¬ 
ors,  in  direct  contrast  to  my  soberly  garbed 
mother,  she  was  as  merry  as  Madame  Liang  was 
grave  and  she  tripped  about  on  her  almost  in¬ 
visible  “golden  lily”  feet  with  an  energy  that 
yet  did  not  destroy  the  grace  of  her  “willow 
walk.” 

But  the  many-colored  costumes,  the  great  cur¬ 
tained  bed  on  one  side,  the  voices — all  suddenly 
seemed  far  away.  And,  as  I  wavered,  smiling 
determinedly,  I  heard  my  husband’s  voice. 

“Mother  thinks  you  are  tired;  so  this  woman  will 

109 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


show  you  to  our  room,  where  you  must  lie  down 
and  rest.” 

Some  time  later,  as  I  lay  resting — with  Alicia 
sleeping  on  my  arm — on  the  bed,  which  had  pur¬ 
ple  curtains  and  soft  white  blankets,  Chan-King 
stepped  quietly  into  the  room. 

“Feel  as  comfortable  as  you  look4?”  he  asked 
and,  when  I  nodded  drowsily,  he  touched  a  box 
of  cakes. 

“These  were  brought  to  you  by  Madame  Chau, 

the  busy  little  lady  out  there.  You  know - ” 

he  hesitated  a  moment,  “she  would  have  been 
my  mother-in-law,  if  I  hadn’t  insisted  on  your 
mother  instead!”  and  he  gave  my  cheek  a  gentle 
pinch. 

I  was  now  wide-awake.  “The  little  bird-lady 
out  there — mother  of  Li-Ying4?”  I  asked. 
“Where  is  Li-Ying,  then4?” 

“They  didn’t  tell  me  anything  directly,” 
Chan-King  answered.  “But  I  gather  from  sev¬ 
eral  pointed  conversations  carried  on  in  my  hear¬ 
ing  that  Madame  Chau  has  just  returned  from 

110 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 


her  daughter’s  house  in  Singapore.  Just  imag¬ 
ine:  little  Li-Ying  is  married,  too,  and  also  has 
three  children — two  girls  and  a  boy.  I  think,” 
said  my  Chinese  husband,  with  charming  com¬ 
placence,  putting  a  hand  over  mine  and  stooping 
to  kiss  Alicia’s  pink,  sleeping  face,  “I  think  our 
arrangement  is  much  better.  Sons  should  be 
older;  then  daughters  are  properly  appreci¬ 
ated  !” 

At  noon,  after  an  hour’s  quiet  sleep,  I  was 
again  aroused  by  Chan-King,  who  stood  beside 
a  maid-servant  with  a  tray. 

I  sat  up.  “I  expected  to  be  out  for  luncheon,” 
I  said,  preparing  to  rise. 

Chan-King  looked  perturbed.  “Stay  where 

you  are,”  he  warned.  “My  mother  has  just  been 

scolding  me  for  allowing  you  to  travel  with  a 

ten-days-old  baby.  ‘As  if  I  could  do  anything 

about  it!’  I  told  her,  blaming  it  all  on  Eve  in  the 

most  approved  Christian  fashion!  She  admires 

your  spirit,  but  thinks  that,  for  your  health’s 

sake,  you  should  rest  two  weeks  longer  at  least!” 

ill 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

I  lay  down  meekly.  “Very  well,”  I  said. 
“Obedience  is  my  watchword!” 

And  for  the  prescribed  time  I  lay  in  my  pretty 
room — all  my  senses  deeply  responsive  to  the  life 
,  going  on  in  a  Chinese  household :  the  clang  of 
small  gongs  that  summoned  the  servants;  much 
laughter  coming  in  faintly  or  clearly  as  my  doors 
were  opened  or  shut;  the  tap  of  lily  feet  along 
the  passageway;  the  glimmer  of  Madame  Spring¬ 
time’s  radiant  pink  or  blue  robes  as  she  entered 
to  inquire  after  my  welfare  or  bring  some  new 
delicacy  that  had  been  procured  for  me.  The 
smoke  of  incense  from  the  altar  floating  into  the 
room  at  intervals,  with  a  pungent  sweetness  that 
roused  vague  memories  and  emotions.  Every¬ 
thing  in  the  house — hangings,  clothes,  furnish¬ 
ings — was  saturated  with  this  aroma.  Mingled 
with  a  bitter  smell,  which  is  distilled  by  immense 
age,  and  touched  with  the  irritative  quality  of 
dust,  this  odor  now  means  China  to  me  and  it  is 
more  precious  than  all  other  perfumes  in  the 
world. 


112 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 


“But,  Chan-King,  life  is  nothing  but  food!” 
I  protested,  about  the  third  day,  when  my  fourth 
meal  had  been  served  to  me  early  in  the  after¬ 
noon. 

“But  the  quantities  are  small,”  he  answered. 
“Much  better  way,  don’t  you  think,  than  taking 
great  meals  many  hours  apart1?” 

Early  in  the  morning,  the  young  maid  assigned 
to  me  would  bring  in  a  bowl  of  hot  milk  and 
biscuit.  In  our  apartment,  at  half  past  eight, 
she  would  serve  breakfast,  consisting  of  soft- 
boiled  rice — congee — with  various  kinds  of 
salty,  sweet  and  sour  preparations.  At  eleven 
o’clock  there  was  turtle  soup  or  chicken  broth. 
At  noon  came  tiffin,  which  consisted  of  substan¬ 
tial  meat  and  vegetable  dishes,  fish  and  soup, 
and  dry-boiled  rice.  Our  mid-afternoon  refresh¬ 
ment  was  noodles  of  wheat  or  bean-flour,  or 
perhaps  a  variety  of  fancy  cakes.  Tea,  kept  hot 
by  a  basket-cozy,  was  always  on  hand  in  every 
room.  At  seven  the  family  dined,  and,  after 

the  two  weeks  were  up,  I  joined  them,  sitting  at 

113 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


the  first  table  with  Mother  and  my  husband. 
Dinner  was  an  elaborate  meal,  in  courses,  with 
rice  at  the  close.  At  bedtime  came  hot  milk 
again,  or  sweet  congee  or  perhaps  tea,  brewed 
from  lotus-seed  or  almonds.  I  was  continually 
nibbling.  I  thought  Chinese  food  delicious,  par¬ 
ticularly  in  my  husband’s  province,  noted  for  its 
delicious  “crunchy”  fried  things. 

But  Chan-King  had  yearnings  for  American 
dishes.  I  gave  the  head  cook  minute  instructions 
for  preparing  fricasseed  chicken,  fresh  salads, 
beefsteak  with  Spanish  sauce — even  American 
hot  cakes,  and  he  enjoyed  the  American  canned 
goods,  with  butter,  cheese,  jams  and  bread,  which 
were  brought  in  frequently  from  the  port. 

An  episode  that  caused  much  merriment  was 
Chan-King’s  initiation  of  his  family  into  the 
mystery — and  history — of  chop  suey.  The  rich 
joke  of  that  “made-in-America”  Chinese  dish  is 
penetrating  to  every  household  where  the  re¬ 
turned  student  is  found.  In  Shanghai  we  had 

heard  with  amusement  how  the  bewildered  chef 

114 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  cafe  had  gone  down  to  one  of 
the  great  trans-Pacific  liners  lying  in  port,  to 
learn  from  the  head  cook  on  board  just  what  this 
“chop  suey,”  which  all  his  returned  student  pa¬ 
trons  were  demanding,  might  be.  Now,  with 
memories  of  old  college  club  activities  prompting 
us,  and  with  a  skilful  cook  to  carry  out  our  di¬ 
rections,  Chan-King  and  I  introduced  into  the 
ancestral  home  that  most  misunderstood  dish  in 
all  the  world.  The  family  agreed  that,  though 
vaguely  familiar,  it  was  unlike  anything  they 
had  ever  tried  before,  and  they  decided  without 
dissenting  vote  that  it  was  superior  to  fricasseed 
chicken,  Spanish  steak  or  hot  cakes. 

At  this  time,  my  husband’s  brother,  Lin-King, 
came  home  for  a  brief  stay.  I  decided  from 
photographs  that  he  resembled  his  father,  who 
was  still  away.  Lin-King  and  Madame  Spring¬ 
time  seemed  well-suited  to  each  other  and  happy, 
although  the  marriage  had  been  arranged  by  their 
families  and  they  had  never  seen  each  other  be¬ 
fore  the  ceremony.  I  decided  that  the  old  cus- 

115 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

tom  had  much  merit,  after  all — for  other  people 
— and  said  so  to  my  husband,  adding,  “When  our 
children  are  grown,  we  must  have  them  all  marry 
Chinese.”  Chan-King  looked  at  me  long  in  si¬ 
lence  and  then,  sighing  humorously,  he  asked, 
“What  of  their  father’s  example,  my  dear4?” 

Since  my  Chinese  was  still  bookish  and  un¬ 
practised  in  the  all-important  matters  of  tone 
and  local  idiom,  I  could  not  converse  with  the 
family,  and  at  the  dinner-table  and  in  my  moth¬ 
er’s  apartment  I  was  as  silent  and  meek  and 
pleasant  of  manner  as  Madame  Springtime  her¬ 
self.  Madame  Springtime  served  formal  tea  to 
our  many  guests  in  absolute  silence,  with  a  sweet, 
fixed  smile  in  the  corners  of  her  red  mouth.  I 
watched  her  with  consuming  interest,  for  she  was 
acting  as  first  daughter-in-law  in  my  stead. 

The  machinery  of  life  ran  with  the  smoothness 
of  long  habit  and  complete  discipline.  The 
meals  were  served,  the  apartments  kept  in  ex¬ 
quisite  order  and  the  children  cared  for  by  a 

corps  of  servants  trained  in  minutiae  by  an  ex- 

116 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

acting  mistress,  who  knew  precisely  what  she 
wanted.  Our  days  were  left  free  for  the  practise 
of  small  courtesies,  the  exchange  of  pretty  at¬ 
tentions  and  the  care  of  the  ancestral  altar. 

From  the  ceremonies  that  took  place  before 
this  altar  at  various  times,  my  husband  kept  him¬ 
self,  his  wife  and  children  sedulously  aloof.  It 
was  neither  asked  nor  expected  that  he  would  do 
otherwise,  just  as  our  attendance  at  the  little 
mission  church  was  accepted  without  question. 
At  other  times,  however,  I  had  ample  opportunity 
to  study  the  altar  and  to  enjoy  the  beauty  of  its 
massive  carvings,  its  elaborate  incense-burners 
and  candlesticks,  its  exquisitely  wrought  em¬ 
broideries.  A  porcelain  image  of  the  Buddhisti0 
Goddess  of  Mercy  in  her  character  of  Son-Giver, 
set  within  a  large  glass  case,  fascinated  me  by  its 
remarkable  resemblance  to  certain  Catholic 
images.  But  the  ancestral  tablets  interested  me 
more,  and  the  respect  that  I  have  always  accorded 
objects  sacred  to  others  was  in  this  instance  min¬ 
gled  with  profoundly  personal  feelings :  the  in- 

117 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

terblended  characteristics  of  those  men  and 
women  so  many  years  dead  and  gone  lived  on  in 
the  man  who  was  my  husband;  their  life  currents 
pulsed  warmly  in  the  veins  of  my  children;  per¬ 
haps  some  deep  insight  gained  beyond  the  grave 
enabled  them  to  know  how  truly  I  acknowledged 
my  debt  to  them,  how  earnestly  I  hoped  those 
children  might  not  prove  unworthy  of  their  heri¬ 
tage. 

With  the  help  of  Chan-King’s  coaching  and  my 
personal  observations,  I  soon  learned  the  gra¬ 
cious  routine  of  the  house.  At  ten  o’clock  every 
morning  I  presented  myself  at  the  door  of 
Madame  Liang’s  apartment  and  sat  with  her  for 
several  hours,  often  over  tiffin,  even  till  tea-time, 
if  she  signified  a  desire  for  my  company.  If  the 
weather  was  fair,  we  would  walk  in  the  garden, 
she  leaning  lightly  on  my  arm,  her  cane  tapping 
on  the  flagstones.  At  times,  also,  tea  was  served 
here,  with  the  small  children  joining  us  for  hot 
milk  and  sweet  cakes. 

I  was  several  days  in  getting  the  members  of 

118 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 


the  household  identified  in  their  proper  relations, 
for  there  were  thirty  persons  gathered  in  that  big, 
low-roofed,  rambling  compound  behind  the  high, 
enveloping  wall.  They  were  nearly  all  women, 
and  two-thirds  of  them  servants.  The  quiet,  soft- 
mannered  woman  relatives  spent  nearly  all  of 
their  time  in  their  own  apartments.  Madame 
Liang’s  powerful  personality,  silent  and  com¬ 
pelling,  paled  the  colors  of  nearly  all  the  tem¬ 
peraments  around  her.  Her  friend  Madame 
Chau  was  immensely  comforting  to  her,  for  she 
could  not  be  persuaded  to  take  anything  very 
seriously.  Madame  Liang  laughed  with  her 
more  than  with  any  one  else.  While  they  busily 
embroidered,  they  gossiped,  and  I  listened  to 
their  musical  speech  with  its  soft  southern  ac¬ 
cents  and  chiming,  many-toned  cadences. 

I  used  to  think,  as  I  sat  in  a  deep-cushioned 
chair,  nursing  the  small  Alicia,  with  a  pot  of  tea 
at  my  elbow,  that  Madame  Liang,  in  her  gor¬ 
geous,  heavily  carved,  black-and-orange  bed,  en¬ 
closed  on  three  sides  by  panels  of  painted  silk 

119 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

and  draped  over  the  front  with  silk  curtains  held 
back  by  tasseled  brocaded  bands,  was  a  link  in 
the  Chain  of  Everlasting  Things.  She  had  come 
into  the  house  exactly  as  “new  women”  had  done 
century  after  century,  and  she  had  lived  out  her 
life  unquestioningly  according  to  their  precepts 
and  example.  There  was  a  monumental,  time¬ 
less  dignity  about  her  as  she  sewed  and  talked 
of  simple  matters.  In  her  presence,  I  felt  young 
and  facile  and  terribly  unanchored. 

I  talked  these  things  over  with  Chan-King  in 
the  dark  of  the  night,  when  all  the  household  was 
silent.  He  was  interested  in  my  reactions,  know¬ 
ing  they  were  the  outcome  of  a  profound  per¬ 
sonal  love  for  his  family  and  sympathy  with 
everybody  in  it.  Spiritually,  Chan-King  also 
was  in  sympathy  with  his  family.  Practically — 
well,  as  I  have  said,  there  were  moments  when 
he  longed  for  American  food,  and  his  first  deed 
in  the  house  was  to  order  the  bed  curtains  re¬ 
moved  from  our  apartment. 

They  were  removed,  and  nothing  was  said.  A 

120 


FIRST  DAUGFITER-IN-LAW 

wonderful  spirit  of  courtesy  and  toleration  pre¬ 
vailed  in  the  family  life,  with  a  complete  absence 
of  that  criss-cross  of  personal  criticism  that  our 
western  freedom  of  speech  permits.  Not  that 
there  were  not  undercurrents,  intimate  antago¬ 
nisms  here  and  there,  personal  sacrifices  and  sor¬ 
rows.  But  they  were  not  recognized,  for  in 
Chinese  life  individual  claims  are  eternally  re¬ 
linquished  in  the  interest  of  clan  peace  and  well¬ 
being.  There  was  one  authority,  and  it  was 
vested  in  Madame  Liang.  Such  a  system  makes 
for  harmony  and  preserves  the  institution  of  the 
family,  on  which  all  China  is  founded. 

Making  no  conscious  effort,  I  myself  yet  be¬ 
came  so  imbued  with  this  spirit  that,  when  the 
government  summons  came  for  Chan-King 
to  report  in  Peking  early  in  the  new  year, 
I  choked  down  my  anguish  and  said,  “How 
splendid  for  us  all,  Chan-King!  When  are  you 
going?” 

We  were  in  the  last  week  of  the  old  year,  and 
at  Madame  Liang’s  earnest  entreaty  my  husband 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

delayed  his  departure  (as  the  summons  permit¬ 
ted),  that,  in  the  midst  of  his  family,  he  might 
celebrate  the  most  delightful  of  all  holidays. 
Delicious  cooking  odors  now  drifted  about  every¬ 
where,  new  clothes  for  every  one  were  made 
ready,  and  faces  took  on  a  shining  happiness. 

One  evening  after  a  visit  with  his  mother, 
Chan-King  came  to  me,  laughing  heartily. 
“Mother  reminds  me,”  he  said,  “that  for  three 
days  it  is  customary  for  the  maids,  when  sweep¬ 
ing  the  floor,  to  pile  the  dust  carefully  in  a  cor¬ 
ner  instead  of  throwing  it  out,  lest  the  family 
good  fortune  should  be  thrown  out  with  it.  But 
she  says  of  course  it  is  only  an  old  superstition 
and  if  you  like  you  may  tell  the  maid  to  remove 
the  sweepings  as  usual.”  I  laughed,  too.  Then 
I  said,  “Tell  Mother  we  shall  do  our  part  toward 
keeping  good  fortune  in  the  family.”  “For  three 
days,  also,”  continued  Chan-King,  “no  harsh  or 
scolding  word  is  to  be  spoken  by  any  one.  And 
therefore,”  he  went  on  sonorously,  “your  tyran¬ 
nical  Chinese  husband  will  cease  to  lecture  his 

122 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

American  wife — who  is  certain  to  need  it, 
though.”  I  looked  into  his  eyes,  bright  with  ir¬ 
repressible  gaiety,  and  suddenly  I  kissed  them 
shut,  my  own  eyes  misty.  “Oh,  my  dearest,”  I 
whispered,  “you  are  just  a  little  boy  at  home 
again,  in  spite  of  the  silver  threads.”  And  I 
smoothed  the  black  locks,  already  sprinkled  with 
gray.  “Chan,  I  love  the  Chinese  New  Year!”  I 
said. 

Even  now  I  see  it  all  again.  My  husband  was 

wearing  a  long,  dignified  gown  of  dark  green 

satin — unfigured,  as  is  customary  for  officials — 

dark  green  trousers,  short  brown  jacket,  lined 

with  soft  fur,  black  satin  cap  and  black  boots. 

Wilfred  was  quite  a  young  gentleman  in  long 

gown  of  blue-green  silk,  braid-trimmed  jacket  of 

dark  green,  blue  trousers  and  red-tufted  cap. 

Chubby  Alfred  was  dressed  in  lavender  jacket, 

scarlet  trousers,  a  tiger-face  apron  of  red,  white 

and  black,  embroidered  slippers  and  a  gay  little 

knitted  cap.  Alicia,  whom  the  whole  family 

loved  best  in  her  frilled  white  American  dresses, 

123 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

added  now  a  pink  silk  jacket  and  an  adorable  lit¬ 
tle  pink  and  black  cap,  which  gave  an  oriental 
grace  to  her  features.  I  wore  my  latest  Shanghai 
creation,  in  pale  lilac-and-black  figured  satin. 
Guests  came  and  went  incessantly,  and  we  made 
our  calls  in  the  village.  The  air  was  filled  with 
odors  of  spice,  molasses,  roasted  meats,  seed¬ 
cakes  and  millet  candy  and  with  sounds  of  fire¬ 
crackers,  gongs  and  happy  voices. 

But  it  was  over  at  last.  The  time  for  my  hus¬ 
band’s  departure  had  come. 

With  silent  expertness,  Ah  Ching  set  about 
packing.  In  three  da5^s  Chan-King  was  ready  to 
go.  He  was  coaching  me  in  the  household 
phrases  I  should  need  most  in  making  myself 
understood  without  his  help.  Madame  Liang  de¬ 
cided  that,  during  my  husband’s  absence,  I  should 
assume  my  position  as  first  daughter-in-law.  I 
had  no  apprehension  in  regard  to  the  minute, 
exacting  duties  that  would  devolve  upon  me  as  a 
right-hand  companion  to  my  husband’s  mother, 

for  I  loved  her,  but  I  was  not  sure  of  mv  tact  or 

124 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 


my  deftness,  and  I  felt  strung  up  painfully  at 
the  thought  of  my  immediate  future. 

After  the  hourly  companionship  of  months, 
parting  from  Chan-King  was  very  terrible  in¬ 
deed.  He  was  in  and  out  of  our  apartment, 
moving  about  the  house  with  restless  energy,  ar¬ 
ranging  final  details.  At  last  he  came  and  stood 
beside  me.  “Tell  me  good-by  now,  dearest,”  he 
whispered.  “Afterward — out  there — we  shall 
have  no  opportunity.”  He  drew  me  close  and 
we  kissed  with  deep  feeling,  the  tears  in  my  eyes 
refusing  to  be  suppressed  any  longer. 

“Don’t  cry,”  he  begged,  with  unaccustomed 
emotion.  “Don’t  cry,  or  I  can’t  leave  you!” 
Then  he  held  my  face  up  and  dried  my  tears  with 
his  handkerchief  and  said  solemnly,  “Smile  at 
me!”  And  I  smiled. 

We  went  across  to  his  mother’s  apartment,  and 
she  came  out,  the  tears  on  her  cheeks  not 
stanched.  Joined  by  the  rest  of  the  family,  we 
accompanied  him  to  the  entrance  and  then  to  the 

gate,  which  stood  open,  almost  blocked  by  the 

125 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

waiting  sedan-chair.  Chan-King  was  in  Chinese 
dress,  and  as  he  stood  there — profile  toward  me 
— among  the  group  of  servants,  giving  his  final 
directions,  he  seemed  more  oriental,  more  ab¬ 
sorbed  into  his  country,  than  I  remembered  ever 
to  have  seen  him. 

He  made  a  profound  bow  to  his  mother,  with 
formal  words  of  leave-taking,  and  gave  me  a 
grave  little  nod.  Then,  without  looking  back, 
he  stepped  into  the  chair,  the  curtains  were 
drawn,  and  the  coolies  trotted  off  down  the  steep 
path,  followed  a  little  way  by  the  bounding  black 
dogs. 

Mother  and  I  stood  together,  after  the  others 
had  gone,  and  watched  his  chair  jostling  down 
the  narrow,  paved  way.  Then  we  turned  and 
looked  at  each  other — rueful  smiles  on  our 
mouths,  tears  in  our  eyes.  We  shook  our  heads 
at  each  other.  I  half  raised  a  hand  to  my  heart, 
then  let  it  fall.  I  think  both  of  us  found  our 
lack  of  mutual  language  a  welcome  excuse  for 
silence. 


126 


FIRST  DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 

Madame  Liang  turned  toward  the  house.  The 
gates  closed  behind  us.  I  gave  her  my  arm  in 
support  until  we  reached  the  doorway;  then  I 
stepped  a  pace  behind  her  as  she  entered.  With¬ 
out  speaking,  I  waited  until  she  had  knelt  at  the 
altar,  and  the  incense  was  rising  in  clouds  before 
the  imperturbable  images  under  their  glass  cases. 
Then  I  attended  her  to  her  own  apartment.  My 
life  as  a  real  Chinese  daughter-in-law  had  be¬ 
gun. 


127 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 


IV 

THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

As  I  followed  my  Chinese  mother  into  her 
apartments,  I  thought  of  the  benevolent  croak- 
ings  of  friends.  Their  words  rattled  through 
my  memory  like  pebbles  shaken  in  a  pail :  “She 
can  never  be  happy  with  a  Chinese  husband!” 
Later  it  was,  “It  is  all  very  well  in  America,  but 
wait  until  she  goes  to  China.”  When  I  had  hap¬ 
pily  established  myself  there,  “Heaven  help 
her,”  said  they,  “if  she  tries  to  live  with  her 
Chinese  mother-in-law!”  In  Shanghai,  foreign 
friends  had  predicted,  “Oh,  yes,  she’s  lovely  in 
your  house,  but  wait  until  you  try  living  in  her 
house!” 

“This  is  the  last  ditch,  Margaret,”  I  said  to 
myself.  “Take  it  clear!  Either  you  are  about 
to  make  one  more  argument  against  intermar¬ 
riage,  or  you  are  going  to  settle  the  question  for¬ 
ever  so  far  as  your  case  is  concerned.” 

131 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

Mother  and  I  went  to  dinner  together,  some¬ 
what  later  than  usual.  We  attacked  our  food 
very  bravely,  eyes  down.  I  glanced  up  inad¬ 
vertently,  and  the  sight  of  tears  on  her  cheeks 
released  mine,  too.  I  leaned  forward  and  took 
her  hand  and  we  struggled  with  a  sentence  or 
two.  “No  tears!”  I  said.  “Be  patient!”  she 
answered. 

Next  morning  after  the  amah  had  dressed 
young  Alicia,  while  the  cheerful  child  was  fol¬ 
lowing  me  about  the  room  with  her  eyes  and  talk¬ 
ing  merry  baby  talk,  I  took  her  up  and  went, 
earlier  than  usual,  to  see  Mother.  I  found  her 
sitting  up  in  bed.  She  was  dressed  for  the  day, 
and  the  blankets  were  rolled  back  against  the 
side  of  the  wall,  making  a  comfortable  couch 
for  her.  Thinking  of  Chan-King,  I  looked  at 
the  row  of  little  cabinets  extending  across  the 
back,  half  way  up  toward  the  canopy.  I  remem¬ 
bered  Chan-King’s  telling  me  of  the  year  when 
he  was  still  small  enough  to  stand  under  these 

fascinatingly  carved  cabinets,  where  his  mother 

132 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

stored  her  trinkets  and  toilet  articles,  embroidery 
silks,  perfumes  and  the  endless  paraphernalia  of 
her  quiet  life,  and  of  the  pride  he  felt  when  he 
bumped  his  head  one  day  and  found  that  he  must 
stoop  to  be  comfortable. 

Wilfred  was  just  high  enough  now  to  stand 
easily  under  the  cabinets,  but,  in  some  mysteri¬ 
ous  fashion,  the  little  image  of  him  presented  at 
this  moment  to  my  fancy  became  that  of  the 
small,  far-away  Chan-King,  whom  I  was  forever 
re-creating  in  my  mind  as  I  went  about  the  house 
where  he  had  lived  his  pleasant  youth. 

This  morning  I  laid  Alicia  on  the  bed  near 
Madame  Liang.  She  bent  over  her  and  made  a 
moue  into  the  rosy  face.  I  was  much  pleased 
when  Madame  Liang  was  unusually  attentive  to 
Alicia,  though  my  sense  of  justice  always  re¬ 
minded  me  that  my  own  Scotch  mother  would 
probably  have  made  more  of  the  boys.  But  our 
Alicia  was  the  first  daughter  in  two  generations 
of  my  husband’s  family,  and,  even  though  the 

sons  were  of  priceless  value  to  the  clan,  she  was 

133 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

loved  and  cherished  tenderly.  It  seemed  to  me 
at  times  that  the  household  was  more  fond  of 
her  than  of  all  the  boys  together,  includ¬ 
ing  Madame  Springtime’s  young  Kya-Song,  who 
filled  the  left  wing  of  the  compound  with  his 
shouts  of  glee  as  he  played  riding-horse  on  his 
precarious  bamboo  stool.  I  remembered  with 
amusement  the  western  idea  that  daughters  are 
unwelcome,  always,  in  Chinese  families. 

While  Madame  Liang  patted  the  baby,  talking 
to  her  coaxingty,  I  asked  what  she  wished  me  to 
do. 

She  indicated  on  her  dressing-table  a  box  of 
stereoscopic  views,  which  I  brought  to  her.  They 
formed  a  complete  story,  but  had  become  very 
much  confused.  As  I  could  read  the  foreign 
titles,  would  I  kindly  arrange  the  pictures  in 
proper  sequence?  The  ease  and  speed  with 
which  I  accomplished  this  task  won  her  instant 
approbation. 

This  was  merely  one  of  the  numberless  small 

things  I  did  for  her  thereafter.  In  my  new  estate 

134 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

I  was  in  attendance  on  my  mother  during  many 
hours  of  the  day.  I  walked  with  her  in  the  gar¬ 
den  in  fine  weather,  I  sat  with  her  and  sewed, 
threading  needles  as  for  my  own  mother  and 
even  helping  her  to  make  those  marvelous  small 
shoes  that  she  fashioned  so  carefully  to  the  form 
of  her  feet.  One  day  I  told  her  how  amazed  I 
had  been  when  I  first  learned  from  Chan-King 
that  Chinese  wives  made  the  family  shoes,  but 
how  readily  I  could  understand,  when  I  saw  the 
dainty  embroidered  foot-wear  he  referred  to, 
that  shoemaking  was  indeed  a  womanly 
craft. 

She  and  Madame  Chau  used  to  take  great 
pride  in  making  for  themselves  the  most  frivo¬ 
lous  of  shoes.  Madame  Chau’s  were  the  smaller, 
being  barely  twro  and  one  half  inches  long, 
whereas  those  of  my  mother  were  twice  that 
length  and  different  in  shape.  I  discovered  the 
reason  for  this:  Madame  Chau  clung  tenaciously 
to  the  old  style;  but  Mother  had  gradually  let 

out  her  bandages  and  altered  their  arrangement, 

135 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

keeping  pace  with  the  change  that  followed  the 
abolition  of  the  old  custom. 

I  became  deeply  interested  in  the  custom  of 
foot-binding.  In  Shanghai,  all  the  pupils  of  my 
school  and  (with  certain  notable  exceptions)  the 
women  of  my  social  world  had  natural  feet,  and 
the  majority  of  them  wore  American  pumps  and 
Oxfords  or  English  boots.  Bound  feet,  though 
I  saw  them  frequently  in  public,  seemed  very 
remote.  But  now,  save  the  girls  of  twelve  and 
under,  who  had  profited  by  the  new  order  of 
things,  the  women  among  whom  I  lived  all  had 
bound  feet.  It  may  be  worth  noting,  when  one 
remembers  how  America,  with  its  own  great  un¬ 
washed,  jokes  at  the  expense  of  the  Chinese  of 
whatever  rank  or  station,  that,  in  accordance 
with  the  fastidious  cleanliness  of  upper-class 
Chinese,  the  bound  feet  were  exquisitely  cared 
for,  and  the  narrow,  white,  specially  woven  ban¬ 
dages  were  changed  every  two  or  three  days.  As 
I  watched  the  daintily  shod  women  of  my  moth¬ 
er’s  household,  I  realized  that  never  before  had 

136 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

I  appreciated,  in  reading  the  literature  of  my 
adopted  country,  the  aptness  of  comparing  the 
walk  of  a  woman  with  bound  feet  to  the  grace  of 
bamboo  swaying  in  the  breeze.  Never  had  I 
suspected  the  charm  attached  to  twinkling  flashes 
of  embroidery  beneath  a  paneled,  many-plaited 
skirt.  My  own  number-four  feet  assumed  alarm¬ 
ing  proportions.  I  grew  positively  ashamed  of 
them.  One  day  as  Mother  and  I  sat  together  in 
armchairs,  with  a  blackwood  tea-table  between 
us,  I  placed  my  feet  in  line  with  hers  and  said, 
sighing,  “Ah,  they  look  very  bad,  indeed!”  She 
waved  a  deprecating  hand.  “Never  mind,”  she 
said  with  courtesy  and  truth;  “they  may  not  look 
so  well,  but  they  certainly  walk  better.” 

Of  course  I  was  glad  that  the  small  Alicia  be¬ 
longed  to  Young  China,  and  would  purchase  no 
golden  lilies  with  a  cask  of  tears,  as  I  had  often 
read  that  every  woman  with  bound  feet  must  do. 
But  I  now  decided  that  the  cask  must  have  been 
filled  in  the  years  of  girlhood.  For  the  women 

about  me  seemed  to  suffer  no  pain — only  an  oc- 

137 


MV  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

casional  numbness,  relieved  by  brisk  massage 
from  knee  to  ankle  under  the  hands  of  a  maid. 
I  was  surprised  at  the  ease  and  energy  with  which 
the}*  got  about,  merely  balancing  with  small  for¬ 
ward  and  backward  steps  when  stopping — unless 
they  had  a  servant's  arm,  or  a  cane,  for  support. 

I  thought  our  mother  infinitely  superior  in  the 
grace  and  dignity  of  her  carriage.  Madame 
Springtime,  who  had  slightly  enlarged  her  feet, 
at  the  command  of  her  husband,  moved  slowly 
and  with  a  lack  of  grace  characteristic  of  the 
younger  generation.  Madame  Chang  moved 
ponderously  and  with  difficulty.  Madame  Chau 
hurried  with  quick,  fluttering  steps.  On  occa¬ 
sion  she  would  even  run  races  with  Alfred,  our 
merry  second  son.  now  two-and-one-half  years 
old.  She  would  catch  his  hand,  lean  forward 
and  hurry  him  the  length  of  the  hall,  the  two 
of  them  laughing  gaily.  Now  and  then  I  would 
fold  my  hands,  balance  on  my  heels  and  essay  a 
“willow  walk,”  to  the  great  amusement  of 

Mother  and  Madame  Chau. 

138 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

Life  went  very  evenly  for  me  in  my  Chinese 
mother’s  house  after  my  husband’s  departure. 
His  father  had  not  come  home  for  his  semi-an¬ 
nual  visit,  and  the  second  son  was  away  again. 
Even  the  quiet-mannered  third  son,  who  looked 
just  like  his  mother,  and  who  used  to  bring  me 
roses  from  the  garden  every  day,  had  sailed  for 
the  island  port  to  take  his  place  in  the  family 
business.  We  were  under  a  benevolent  matriar- 
chate  in  the  snug  compound  among  the  brown 
hills  now  brightening  to  springtime  green. 

Madame  Liang  was  infallibly  generous  and 
kind.  I  never  heard  her  speak  sharply  except 
occasionally  to  servants  who  had  by  their  care¬ 
lessness  caused  something  to  go  amiss,  impeding 
the  smooth  progress  of  daily  family  life.  I  used 
to  watch  her  with  interest  as  she  directed  the 
household  affairs  from  the  throne  of  her  great 
bed.  She  rarely  gave  her  orders  at  first  hand, 
but  would  summon  a  relative  or  an  upper  ser¬ 
vant,  who  would  receive  and  pass  them  down  to 

those  for  whom  they  were  intended.  This  im- 

139 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


parted  to  her  orders  an  empress-like  finality  and 
importance.  The  servants  gave  her  complete  al¬ 
legiance. 

She  took  great  pride  in  conducting  me  through 
the  complicated  structure  where  generations  of 
Liangs  had  lived  and  died.  Extending  back 
from  the  main  establishment  was  a  series  of 
smaller  ones  like  it,  each  with  its  own  courtyard, 
its  main  hall  containing  the  family  altar,  its  pri¬ 
vate  chambers  opening  on  each  side.  Similar 
chains  of  “homes  within  a  home”  extended  east 
and  west,  at  right  angles  to  this  central  chain. 
Mother  showed  me  the  rooms  she  had  occupied  as 
a  bride,  with  the  chamber  where  Chan-King  was 
born,  when  the  older  Madame  Liang  ruled  af¬ 
fairs  with  a  firm  yet  kindly  hand.  I  felt  deeply 
moved  by  all  this,  more  than  ever  a  part  of  the 
family. 

I  made  many  small  mistakes,  I  know,  in  my 

effort  to  practise  the  toleration,  industry  and 

courtesy  exemplified  in  that  family  group,  but 

Mother,  unlike  many  of  the  oversensitive,  easily 

140 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 


offended  Chinese  women  of  her  class,  was  di¬ 
vinely  patient.  She  never  asked  of  me  anything 
that  she  deemed  unfitting  for  me  and  she  showed 
a  wise  discrimination  in  all  the  small  tasks  she 
assigned.  I  sometimes  accompanied  her  to  the 
temple,  or  to  the  ancestral  graves,  but  only  as  a 
spectator.  Her  religious  toleration  required  no 
compromise.  She  wanted  me  to  see  where  grand¬ 
parents  and  great-grandparents  were  laid  to  rest. 
She  knew  I  was  interested  and  filled  with  respect. 
To  Madame  Springtime  fell  the  task  of  caring 
for  the  family  altar  and  keeping  up  the  daily  de¬ 
votions  before  the  sacred  shrine. 

This  young  wife  was  in  every  way  so  typical 
of  the  old-fashioned  Chinese  woman,  trained  but 
not  educated,  disciplined  but  not  broken,  that  I 
found  her  a  continual  source  of  interest.  She 
was  naturally  shy  and  silent,  but  after  a  time  we 
talked  a  little,  and  one  day  she  showed  me  her 
bridal  trunks  of  white  lacquer  with  red  and  gold 
decorations,  filled  to  the  top  with  her  bridal  fin¬ 
ery,  exquisitely  folded,  and  the  clothes  for  her 


141 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

first  child,  which  had  been  provided  by  her  par¬ 
ents  as  a  part  of  her  wedding  outfit. 

This  latter  custom  of  Chan-King’s  native 
province  appealed  to  me.  It  was  typical  of  the 
many  simplicities  I  found  among  my  adopted 
people.  Those  small,  brilliant-colored  garments 
of  padded  silk  and  brocade  and  linen  were  sym¬ 
bols  of  hope,  good  omens  for  happiness  and  a 
fruitful  marriage.  Accustomed  as  I  was  to 
falsely  puritanic  ideals  concerning  the  important 
realities  of  life — marriage  and  birth — their  frank 
attitude  toward  fundamentals,  their  unquestion¬ 
ing  acceptance  of  the  facts  of  existence  came  as  a 
pleasant  surprise  to  me. 

I  liked  also  the  curious  contrast  between  their 
simple  view  of  elemental  things  and  the  formal¬ 
ity  and  rigor  of  their  personal  etiquette.  It  is 
the  manner  of  an  old  and  ever  cultivated  race, 
who  have  long  since  ceased  building  at  the  foun¬ 
dation  and  are  now  occupied  with  the  decorations 
of  life. 

Their  scheme  of  daily  living  is  based  on  the 

142 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

firm  belief  that  the  normal  mode  of  human  ex¬ 
istence  is  family  life.  To  this  end  it  must  be 
preserved  at  any  cost.  Life  cannot  develop  in 
discord.  If  the  amenities  are  worth  anything  at 
all,  they  are  worth  preserving  constantly  and  at 
whatever  personal  sacrifice. 

Life  behind  the  arched  gate  was  so  pleasant 
and  so  filled  with  small,  daily  occupations  that  I 
thought  little  of  going  about.  The  village  had 
no  theater.  On  festal  days  performances  were 
given  by  traveling  troupes,  on  temporary  stages, 
in  temples  or  private  houses.  But  we  occasionally 
attended  the  theatre  in  the  great  city  near  by, 
and,  when  we  had  guests  staying  with  us  for  sev¬ 
eral  days,  they  sometimes  accompanied  us.  We 
were  rather  an  impressive  sight,  I  fancy,  borne  at 
a  brisk  trot,  in  half  a  dozen  sedan-chairs,  down 
the  irregular  path  at  dusk,  preceded  and  fol¬ 
lowed  by  men  servants  carrying  lanterns. 

The  children  led  a  sheltered,  happy  existence, 
with  servants  and  young  relatives  to  amuse  them 

indoors  or  without,  as  the  weather  permitted. 

143 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

They  were  liberally  supplied,  by  their  indulgent 
grandmother,  with  pocket-money  in  the  form  of 
handfuls  of  coppers  instead  of  the  strings  of  cash 
that  sufficed  an  earlier  generation.  From  pass¬ 
ing  venders  they  bought  bows  and  arrows  of 
brightly  painted  bamboo,  whistling  birds  and 
theatrical  figures  of  colored  earthenware,  inflated 
rubber  toys  and  an  endless  variety  of  rice-flour 
cakes,  sesame-seed  confections,  peanut  taffy  and 
millet  candy.  On  festal'  days  the  choice  was 
wider  than  ever,  with  fluffy  bunches  of  sugar 
wool  (fine-spun  syrup)  and  brittle  candy  toys 
blown  from  molten  taffy  with  all  the  glass-blow¬ 
er’s  art,  in  the  form  of  lanterns,  birds  and  fish, 
mounted  on  slender  sticks.  At  certain  seasons, 
there  were  huge  fish  made  of  bamboo  frames, 
paper-covered  and  realistically  painted,  which 
swam  in  a  breeze  with  lazy  grace,  or  kites  simi¬ 
larly  fashioned  to  represent  birds  and  dragons, 
which  winged  upward  in  fascinating  flight. 

There  was  a  limited  foreign  settlement  in  this 
same  city  and  several  of  the  American  and  Brit- 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

ish  women  came  to  call  on  me.  Some  of  them 
were  frankly  curious  to  know  how  I  had  come 
through  the  “ordeal  by  family,”  as  one  of  them 
expressed  it,  though  of  course  they  were  very 
tactful. 

Mother  was  much  interested  in  these  visitors, 

i 

many  of  whom — if  able  to  speak  Chinese — I  pre¬ 
sented  to  her.  When  they  left,  she  would  often 
ask  questions  as  to  their  nationality,  their  hus¬ 
bands’  occupation,  the  number  of  their  children. 
As  for  that  question,  most  of  them  confessed  to 
one  child  or,  occasionally,  two.  But  I  shall  never 
forget  the  call  of  a  strikingly  handsome,  auburn¬ 
haired  woman  and  the  conversation  that  followed 
her  departure.  In  reply  to  the  usual  inquirjq  I 
said,  “No  children  at  all!  But  she  has  five 
dogs  and  has  just  bought,  in  Shanghai, 
two  more,  which  are  coming  down  on  the 
next  steamer.” 

“No  children  at  all,  and  five — seven  dogs!” 

said  Mother  in  tones  of  horror.  And  then  we 

burst  out  laughing.  But  quickly  she  sobered. 

145 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

“Foreign  women  do  not  care  for  children,”  she 
said. 

“I  do,”  I  protested.  “I  like  many  children.” 

“You,”  said  my  mother  with  a  smile,  “are  a 
Chinese  wife.” 

But  happily  my  next  caller  was  a  sweet-faced 
American  woman,  the  proud  mother  of  six,  two 
of  whom  she  brought  with  her.  So  our  national 
reputation  was  saved. 

In  these  days,  I  thought  a  great  deal  about 
intermarriage  as  a  problem.  Back  in  Shanghai, 
a  returned  student  who  visited  in  our  home  for 
several  days  had  said  to  Chan-King  afterward, 
“I  almost  married  an  American  girl  while  I  was 
in  college.  I  wish  now  I  had  been  brave  enough 
to  do  so.”  At  that  time  I  felt  very  sorry  for  the 
unknown  girl  who  had  missed  all  the  happiness 
that  was  coming  to  me,  and  now  I  was  more  sure 
than  ever  of  the  true  quality  of  my  happiness. 
There  was  no  doubt  at  all  on  that  score.  But  I 
realized  the  many,  many  ways  in  which  every¬ 
thing  might  have  been  spoiled.  Had  my  hus- 

146 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 


band  been  less  considerate,  less  sincere  and  loyal, 
had  his  family  been  less  kindly  and  broad¬ 
minded,  had  I  myself  been  capricious  and  wilful 
or  unable  to  adapt  myself  to  surroundings,  I 
might  every  day  have  plumbed  the  depths  of  mis¬ 
ery.  I  decided  that  no  rules  could  be  made  about  \ 
intermarriage.  It  was  an  individual  problem,  as  j 
indeed  all  marriage  must  be.  So,  when  a  young 
girl  back  home  in  America  wrote  to  me  for  ad¬ 
vice,  believing  herself  in  love  with  a  Chinese 
classmate,  and  concluded,  “You,  Mrs.  Liang, 
must  settle  the  question  for  me,”  I  answered,  as 
I  should  not  have  done  a  year  earlier:  “That  is  a 
question  that  you  two  alone  are  competent  to 
settle.  No  one  can  advise  you  safely,  for  a  mis¬ 
take  either  way  may  result  in  lifelong  unhappi¬ 
ness.  But  I  might  venture  to  suggest  that  love 
strong  enough  to  stand  the  test  of  intermarriage 
does  not  seek  advice.  It  is  sure  of  itself.” 

In  a  household  where  only  my  eldest  son  and 
I  spoke  English,  my  lingual  struggles  were  un¬ 
expectedly  mild.  Chan-King  had  left  me  a  list 

147 


v 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

of  every-day  phrases,  and  my  ear  grew  very  keen 
in  my  constant  efforts  to  understand  the  rapid 
speech  going  on  around  me  all  day  long.  In  a 
short  while  I  could  understand  virtually  every¬ 
thing  said  to  me. 

During  the  long  conversations  that  Mother 
and  I  had  in  the  quiet  of  the  evening,  we  talked 
much  of  Chan-King  and  she  displayed  treasured 
relics  of  his  boyhood:  a  small  jacket  of  deep  red 
velvet,  a  worn  cap,  a  silver  toy  and  the  identical 
schoolbook  in  which  he  began  the  study  of  Eng¬ 
lish.  I  loved  them  all,  loved  her  the  more  for 
cherishing  them  and  was  made  supremely  happy 
by  being  given  a  photograph  of  Chan-King  at  an 
earlier  age  than  any  he  possessed.  She  was  very 
much  interested  in  all  our  photographs,  too.  She 
was  vastly  amused  at  Chan-King  arrayed  for  col¬ 
lege  theatricals  and,  when  I  brought  out  pictures 
of  myself  at  all  ages,  of  my  parents  and  grand¬ 
parents,  she  traced  family  resemblances  with  un¬ 
erring  perception.  Sometimes  we  looked  at 

magazines  that  Chan-King  sent  us  from  the  capi- 

148 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 


tal  or  talked  of  various  foreign  customs.  I  soon 
found  it  very  easy  to  talk  with  her  and  with  her 
help  I  learned  also  to  read  and  v/rite  simple  Chi¬ 
nese  characters,  for  a  very  liberal-minded  father 
had  given  her  educational  advantages  enjoyed 
by  few  girls  of  her  generation. 

When  the  hands  of  her  small  ebony  clock 
pointed  to  twelve,  she  would  touch  my  hand 
gently  and  say,  “Time  for  you  to  sleep.” 

“But  first  I  must  write  to  Chan-King,”  I  would 
answer. 

She  would  shake  her  finger  at  me  with  kindly 
caution.  “It  is  too  late,  she  would  answer. 
“You  must  sleep.” 

I  would  hold  out  firmly  on  this  point.  “But 
my  mother,  if  I  do  not  write  to  Chan-King,  I  can¬ 
not  sleep!” 

She  would  assent  then,  and  next  day  I  would 

carry  the  pages  to  show  her,  for  my  letters  to 

Chan-King  and  his  voluminous  responses  were  a 

source  of  much  amusement  to  her.  I  translated 

these  letters  to  her  as  faithfully  as  my  limited 

149 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

Chinese  would  allow,  and  in  my  letters  always 
added  messages  dictated  by  her. 

I  was  learning  the  romanized  method  of  writ¬ 
ing  Chinese,  which  for  our  dialect  has  been  re¬ 
markably  developed  and  standardized.  Mother 
was  much  interested  when  I  showed  her  how  to 
write  familiar  words  with  foreign  letters,  and 
Chan-King  always  answered  these  messages  in 
kind,  though  his  mother  and  he  carried  on  a  regu¬ 
lar  correspondence  in  the  Chinese  characters. 

“Those  children  write  long  letters  to  each 
other,  fifteen  and  twenty  pages  at  a  time,”  she 
often  told  her  friends  wTith  manifest  delight. 

Beyond  this  personal  companionship  with  my 
mother,  which  I  enjoyed  very  much,  there  was  no 
restraint  put  upon  me  in  any  way.  I  was  free  to 
walk  out  alone,  to  return  calls  and  to  shop  in  the 
city. 

My  own  sense  of  fitness  prompted  me  always 

to  present  myself  at  the  door  of  my  mother’s 

apartment  before  I  left  the  house,  to  explain  to 

her  the  nature  of  my  errand  and  to  ask  for  her 

150 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

approval.  Accepting  the  little  formality  for  the 
courtesy  it  was,  she  never  once  demurred.  She 
was  accustomed  to  this  respect,  and  I  saw  no  rea¬ 
son  for  withholding  it.  All  the  invitations  I  re¬ 
ceived  from  acquaintances,  either  foreign  or  Chi¬ 
nese,  I  declined  or  accepted  as  she  advised,  be¬ 
cause  I  relied  upon  her  unfailing  knowledge  of 
people  and  social  customs. 

Twice  during  those  months  of  Chan-King’s 
absence  death  came  near.  Once  it  was  a  clever 
young  boy,  an  only  son,  in  whom  high  hopes  had 
been  centered;  and  then,  the  young  girl  who  had 
accompanied  Mother  to  Shanghai.  She  was  no 
servant  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  an  orphaned 
distant  relative  of  Mother’s.  Madame  Liang 
was  always  kind  and  generous  with  her,  and 
when,  soon  after  her  return  from  the  trip  to 
Shanghai,  which  had  been  a  great  event  in  her 
quiet  life,  a  promising  marriage  offer  was  made, 
she  was  sent  forth  to  her  new  home  with  a  com¬ 
plete  bridal  outfit.  Hearing  at  last  of  our  pres¬ 
ence  in  the  family  home,  she  put  on  her  wedding- 

151 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

dress  of  pale  green  and  came  to  see  me.  Her  evi¬ 
dent  pleasure  in  the  meeting  touched  me  poig¬ 
nantly.  With  bright  eagerness  she  told  me  of 
her  husband,  her  kind  mother-in-law.  With 
pride  she  described  her  tiny  son.  After  a  gay 
hour  with  the  children  she  left,  promising  to  come 
again.  But  I  never  saw  her  afterward.  Death 
took  her  abruptly  from  her  happiness. 

I  began  to  think  of  death  as  something  not  so 
remote  after  all.  Several  times  a  group  of  us — 
children  and  cousins  and  friends  and  servants — 
made  short  chair-trips  into  the  hills.  The  sight 
of  thousands  of  graves,  their  stones  whitening 
the  hillsides  for  miles  in  some  places,  impressed 
me  more  and  more  with  the  comparative  short¬ 
ness  of  life. 

Scattered  over  many  of  these  hills  are  curious 
monuments  of  stone,  called  “widow  arches,”  each 
one  standing  alone,  usually  by  a  roadside,  in 
commemoration  of  a  faithful  wife  who,  in  an¬ 
cient  days,  killed  herself  at  the  death  of  her 

husband.  A  widow  who  wished  to  make  this 

152 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

sacrifice  would,  after  a  short  lapse  of  time,  an¬ 
nounce  her  intention  of  committing  suicide. 
The  members  of  her  family  would  erect  a  high 
stage  for  her  and  invite  relatives  and  friends  to 
attend  the  ceremony.  At  the  chosen  hour,  the 
lady  would  hang  herself,  and  a  high  stone  arch 
would  later  be  erected  as  a  memorial  of  her  de¬ 
votion  and  heroism. 

In  the  Chinese  family,  the  widow  who  does 
not  remarry  receives  honor  and  veneration  sec¬ 
ond  only  to  the  mother-in-law.  With  age,  she 
acquires  added  authority.  She  is  not  forbidden 
to  remarry,  but  the  conditions  of  second  marriage 
are  made  difficult  enough  to  discourage  any  but 
the  most  intrepid.  The  children  of  her  first  hus¬ 
band  remain  in  the  house  of  his  people,  and  the 
family  of  her  second  husband  do  not  give  her 
any  too  cordial  a  welcome. 

One  naturally  prefers  free  will  in  these  things. 

Yet  I  had  a  whole-hearted  sympathy  with  the 

idea  of  life-widowhood,  long  before  I  dreamed  it 

was  to  be  my  portion.  Painful  as  the  sight  of 

153 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


the  “widow  arches”  was  to  me  at  first,  my  con¬ 
victions  made  the  Chinese  view  of  them  seem 
not  unnatural,  though  I  knew  the  custom  had 
been  forbidden  by  imperial  edict  some  two  cen¬ 
turies  earlier. 

Even  in  the  days  when  Chan-King  and  I  be¬ 
lieved  that  our  love  would  somehow  give  us 
earthly  immortality,  the  idea  was  strong  in  me 
that  to  those  who  loved  truly,  death  could  only 
extinguish  the  torch  for  a  moment  to  relight  it 
in  the  clearer  flame  of  eternity.  Then,  I  cher- 
ished  this  thought  in  the  background  of  my  mind. 
Now,  I  live  by  it. 

For  this  reason,  too,  I  have  always  found  the 
Chinese  attitude  toward  the  dead  very  comfort¬ 
ing.  They  never  for  a  moment  relinquish  hold 
on  their  loved  ones.  The  death-day  anniversary 
is  as  festal  an  occasion  as  the  day  of  birth.  The 
pageant  of  life  marches  without  a  break,  birth  to 
death  and  beyond,  and  birth  again,  the  genera¬ 
tions  endlessly  touching  mystical  hands,  until 

the  individual  feels  himself  to  be  part  of  an  end- 

154 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

less  procession  that  passes  for  a  moment  into  a 
white  light  and  out  again,  feels  himself  touching 
those  who  came  before  and  those  who  come  after 
— one  of  a  long  line,  bound  together  irrevocably. 

With  all  their  ethics  of  personal  sacrifice  and 
their  preoccupation  with  the  idea  of  eternity,  the 
Chinese  have  no  ascetic  contempt  for  the  material 
world  and  they  earnestly  desire  and  seek  length 
of  days.  Among  the  varied  symbols  and  char¬ 
acters  used  to  express  good  wishes — as  health, 
honor,  riches — those  for  “long  life”  hold  pre¬ 
eminence.  They  are  wrought  in  rings,  bracelets, 
hair  ornaments,  and  are  sewed  into  bridal  gar¬ 
ments  and  upon  children’s  little  coats  and  caps. 
I  always  felt  this  enormous  respect  for  life  in  all 
their  daily  customs — the  preparing  of  the  baby 
clothes  when  the  bride  left  her  father’s  house,  the 
nurturing  and  strengthening  of  the  clan  with 
many  children,  the  reverent  regard  for  the  graves 
of  the  ancestors  to  whom  the  living  owed  their 
grace  of  existence. 

On  several  occasions  I  accompanied  my  mother 

155 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

on  her  visits  to  the  ancestral  graves.  I  remem¬ 
ber  the  last  time,  only  a  few  days  before  Chan- 
King’s  return,  that  I  walked  with  her,  holding 
one  of  her  hands,  while  with  the  other  she  grasped 
her  gold-headed  cane.  She  wore  a  light  costume 
— a  plaited  black  skirt  and  lavender  “coat”  and 
lovely  black  kid  shoes.  Servants  followed  with 
her  baskets  of  offerings. 

We  stood  at  a  respectful  distance,  in  silence, 
while  she  performed  her  rites.  All  about  were 
placed  papers,  weighted  down  with  small  stones. 
She  knelt  and,  clasping  her  hands,  devoutly  re¬ 
peated  her  prayers  under  her  breath.  Then,  as¬ 
sisted  by  a  servant,  she  burned  the  paper  symbols 
of  refreshment  and  replenishment  for  the  dead. 
Firecrackers  were  exploded  to  clear  the  air  of 
evil  spirits,  and  the  ceremony  was  over. 

As  we  returned  to  the  village,  everywhere  peo¬ 
ple  called  out  to  her  from  their  doorways  and 
she  invariably  replied  with  friendly  courtesy. 
In  the  outskirts  we  stopped  for  rest  and  a  visit 

at  the  home  of  a  cousin.  When  we  left,  many 

156 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

of  the  relatives  and  friends  went  with  us  a  little 
way,  crying  out  repeatedly,  “Good-by!”  and 
“Come  again,  come  again  soon!”  I  saw  the  sun¬ 
light  on  Tiger  Mountain;  I  smelled  the  saltness 
of  the  sea.  As  we  passed  around  the  great  boul¬ 
ders  that  hid  them  from  our  sight,  the  modulated 
cadence  of  their  “Come  again,  come  again  soon!” 
floated  to  us.  It  was  the  last  time  I  should  hear 
it  as  I  was  then,  and  I  did  not  even  dream  that 
it  was  so. 

For  a  month  I  had  been  expecting  the  arrival 

of  Chan-King.  His  letters  were  always  love- 

letters,  with  added  paragraphs  saying  that  he 

was  getting  on  well  with  his  work  and  would 

have  much  to  tell  me  of  it  when  he  came  home. 

At  last  a  letter  told  us  to  expect  him  by  a  certain 

steamer,  on  a  certain  day.  But  schedules  were 

still  in  confusion  because  of  the  war.  That 

steamer  was  delayed,  and  Chan-King  sailed  for 

another  port,  meaning  to  change  there.  More 

delays  followed.  More  Letters  of  explanation. 

More  delays  again.  Mother  and  I  both  became 

157 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

heart-sick  with  hope  deferred.  At  last,  one  morn¬ 
ing,  worn  out  with  watching,  I  slept  later  than 
usual,  and  on  that  morning  Chan-King  came 
home. 

Awakened  out  of  a  long  drowse,  I  heard  a  stir 
in  the  quiet  house,  the  clang  of  a  gong,  a  rush 
of  padded  footfalls  in  the  outer  hall.  Happy 
voices  mingled  in  greeting  at  the  door  of  my 
mother’s  apartment.  I  threw  on  my  robe,  tucked 
Alicia  under  my  arm  and  ran  across  the  room, 
flinging  the  door  open  even  as  ChamKing  had 
his  hand  raised  to  knock  at  the  panel.  I  saw 
him  dimly  in  the  wavering  light.  He  was  smil¬ 
ing,  and  behind  him  stood  his  mother,  also  smil¬ 
ing.  Each  of  us  solemnly  spoke  the  other’s  name, 
trying  to  erase,  with  a  long  look,  the  memory  of 
all  those  months  of  absence.  Then  he  saw  the 
baby.  “Li-Sia,  my  thousand  catties  of  gold!”  he 
said,  in  Chinese.  Alicia  smiled  and  held  out  her 
arms  to  him.  “She  recognizes  him!”  said 
Mother,  in  pleased  surprise.  We  three  stood  to¬ 
gether  a  moment,  silently,  gathered  around  the 

158 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

child.  I  felt  myself  more  deeply  absorbed  into 
the  clan — a  Chinese  woman,  dedicated  anew, 
heart  and  spirit,  to  my  adopted  people. 

Later,  Chan-King  explained  to  me  the  reason 
for  his  home-coming.  His  legal  service  for  the 
government  had  been  completed  and  his  expected 
appointment  had  come  at  last.  We  were  to  re¬ 
turn  to  America,  where  he  would  be  in  the  Chi¬ 
nese  consular  service.  After  a  period  in  this 
work,  a  bright  future  in  the  diplomatic  field 
seemed  assured.  It  meant  leaving  my  beloved 
China,  where  I  had  firmly  taken  root.  But  we 
agreed  that  the  exile  would  be  for  only  a  few 
years  and  that  we  would  return  surely  to  our 
Promised  Land,  there  to  enjoy  our  span  of  “long 
life  with  honor/’ 

Now  our  leisurely  existence  was  broken  up  to 

a  degree.  Almost  immediately  we  set  about 

preparations  for  our  new  life  in  America.  Chan- 

King  looked  forward  with  absorbing  interest  to 

the  change,  almost  as  if  he  were  going  home.  My 

instant  reaction  was  one  of  joy,  swiftly  followed 

159 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

by  sorrow  at  giving  up  things  now  loved  and  fa¬ 
miliar.  I  wanted  to  appear  cheerful,  as  a  duty 
to  those  around  me.  I  did  not  want  to  seem  too 
cheerful,  lest  Mother  think  me  glad  to  go. 

In  this  period,  at  last,  I  met  my  Chinese  father. 
One  beautiful  day  in  early  autumn,  Chan-King 
and  I  went  down  to  the  city,  returning  in  mid- 
afternoon.  As  our  chairs  were  set  down  before 
the  entrance,  the  gatekeeper  announced  to  Chan- 
King  his  father’s  arrival.  I  was  filled  with  swift 
apprehension.  Again  chance  had  decided  my 
costume:  I  was  wearing — not  the  conservative 
Chinese  garb  in  which  I  had  met  my  mother — but 
a  frilly  American  dress  of  blue  and  white  sum¬ 
mer  silk,  a  white  lace  hat  with  black  velvet  and 
pink  rosebuds  and  white  kid  pumps.  Chan-King 
had  on  white  flannels  and  a  Panama  hat.  The 
latter  he  handed  to  a  servant,  as  also  his  cane. 
As  we  entered  the  main  room  together,  a  figure 
rose  from  beside  Mother  to  receive  us.  I  saw 
an  elderly  man  of  medium  height,  with  grim, 

smooth-shaven  face  and  gray  hair.  He  was  wear- 

160 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

ing  a  long  gown  of  deep  blue  silk,  with  a  black 
outer  jacket  and  the  usual  round  cap  of  black 
satin.  My  husband  first  greeted  him  and  then 
presented  me.  While  I  stood  uncertain,  there 
was  a  courteous  inclination  of  the  gray  head,  the 
grimness  of  expression  dissolved  in  a  wonder¬ 
fully  winning  smile,  and,  surprisingly,  as  Mother 
had  done,  my  Chinese  father  extended  his  hand. 
I  felt  that  he  was  interpreting  me  in  the  light  of 
all  she  had  told  him,  that  his  cordial  handclasp 
and  kindly  words  of  welcome  were  his  ratifica¬ 
tion  of  her  judgment.  Then,  with  a  courtly  ges¬ 
ture,  he  assigned  me  to  his  lately  occupied  chair 
beside  Mother,  while  he  and  Chan-King  took 
seats  together  opposite  us.  Mother  smiled  into 
my  eyes  with  her  happiest  expression.  I  felt  that 
Chan-King’s  background  was  complete.  Long 
before,  I  had  conceived  of  it  as  harsh  and  threat¬ 
ening,  but  I  had  now  proved  it  to  be  wholly  kind 
and  protecting.  At  my  recent  fear  of  this  last 
test  I  wondered  and  smiled. 

Father  was  much  gratified  at  finding  his  grand- 

161 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

sons  able  to  converse  fluently  in  his  native 
speech.  He  would  gather  them  all  about  him  for 
an  hour  at  a  time,  asking  questions  to  test  their 
practical  knowledge,  or  telling  stories  to  amuse 
them.  Alicia  also  delighted  him.  At  simple 
Chinese  commands,  she  would  now  clasp  her 
hands  or  fold  them  and  bow  profoundly.  Mother 
was  very  proud  of  her  wee  granddaughter  and 
would  often  say,  “She  is  just  as  Chan-King  was 
at  her  age !”  And  her  husband  would  invariably 
assent  with  an  indulgent  smile.  There  existed 
between  these  two — conservative  types  though 
they  were — an  evidence  of  mutual  affection  and 
respect,  of  real  companionship,  that  touched  me 
profoundly.  I  was  glad  that  Father  was  to  be 
with  Mother  when  Chan-King  and  I  took  our¬ 
selves  and  our  three  children  from  the  home 
where,  according  to  the  old  Chinese  custom,  we 
all  rightfully  belonged. 

The  question  of  leaving  one  or  more  of  our 
children  there  for  a  time  was  discussed  one  after¬ 
noon  later. 


162 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

“Under  ordinary  circumstances,”  said  Father 
to  Chan-King,  “you  would  go  alone,  as  your 
brother  does,  leaving  your  entire  family  with  us. 
At  the  very  least,  you  would  allow  one  child  to 
remain  in  your  stead.  But,  of  course,  your 
mother  and  I  understand  that  these  are  not  ordi¬ 
nary  circumstances.  Your  wife  is  an  American. 
She  has  been  considerate  of  our  point  of  view  in 
many  ways — more  than  we  expected — and  in  this 
matter  we  do  not  fail  to  consider  hers,  which  is 
no  doubt  your  own  as  well.  We  understand  that 
according  to  the  American  view  the  children  be¬ 
long  with  their  parents,  always.  We  cannot,  of 
course,  deny  your  right  to  this  manner  of  living. 
But  we  want  you  to  feel  that,  if  you  can  leave 
even  one  child  with  us,  we  shall  be  very  happy. 
You  understand  what  protection  and  care  will 
be  given  it.” 

For  a  moment  there  was  silence.  My  heart 
was  very  full,  and,  even  had  it  been  my  place  to 
speak,  I  should  have  been  unable  to  do  so.  Men¬ 
tally  I  pictured  Mother’s  loneliness  at  losing  so 

163 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

many  of  her  children.  Vainly  I  tried  to  imagine 
our  home  in  America  with  even  one  small  face 
missing.  I  watched  my  husband,  noted  the  tiny 
traces  of  conflict  in  his  face,  impassive  perhaps 
to  the  casual  glance.  At  last  he  spoke. 

“Father,  Mother,”  he  began  earnestly,  “we  ao 
indeed  appreciate  your  great  kindness  and  gener¬ 
osity.  You  will  understand  that,  just  as  you 
understand  most  truly  our  situation.  We  know 
that  here  with  you  our  children  would  have  many 
advantages  that  we,  perhaps,  cannot  give  them. 
But  which  one  could  we  leave  to  enjoy  those  ad¬ 
vantages*?  Not  Wilfred,  for  he  is  our  eldest  son, 
on  whom  we  place  great  dependence.  And  Al¬ 
fred — of  us  all  he  seems  least  fitted  for  the  south¬ 
ern  climate.  The  summer  heat  has  left  him  a 
little  pale  and  listless.  He  needs  the  sea  voyage. 
As  for  Alicia,  she  is  the  baby,  and  our  only 
daughter.  Do  not  think  us  unmindful  of  all  you 
have  done.  But  I  fear  we  should  not  know  how 
to  make  our  home  without  our  children.” 

After  all,  it  was  evidently  not  unexpected. 

164 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

They  shook  their  heads  a  trifle  ruefully  at  each 
other  and  then  smiled. 

“Very  well,”  Father  assented.  “But  this  you 
must  promise:  that  at  intervals,  whenever  your 
work  permits,  you  will  come  back — all  of  you — 
and  spend  a  year  with  us  again.  Do  not  let  the 
children  forget  us  nor  their  Chinese  speech.  In 
four  years,  at  most,  all  come  back  together.” 

We  promised  readily,  Mother  and  I  repeating 
the  phrase  to  each  other,  ‘“In  four  more  years,  all 
come  back  together.”  Our  eyes  were  full  of 
tears. 

That  night  I  said  to  my  husband,  “We  should 
have  left  one  of  them.” 

But  Chan-King  was  a  clearer  thinker,  just 
then,  and  knew  the  truth  of  this  situation  better 
than  I  did.  “Which  one?”  he  asked  me,  signifi¬ 
cantly,  in  a  tone  that  made  me  see  the  essential 
hollowness  of  my  protest. 

On  the  Sunday  before  our  ship  sailed,  Chan- 

King  and  I  bade  farewell  to  China.  In  company 

with  our  parents  and  many  other  relatives  we 

165 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 

walked  to  the  top  of  a  very  high  hill,  where  an 
old  temple,  which  commanded  a  magnificent  view 
for  miles  around,  crouched  contentedly  among 
the  rocks,  in  the  gray  sunshine.  It  was  a  tem¬ 
ple  of  the  three  religions,  with  huge  stone  images 
of  Confucius,  Buddha  and  Lao-tse  grouped  in  its 
outer  court.  Together,  Chan-King  and  I  climbed 
to  the  crest  of  the  terraced  rock.  I  looked  about 
me,  down  upon  the  proud,  bright  little  village, 
alert  and  colorful  on  the  hillside,  upon  the  scat¬ 
tering  fertile  patches  in  the  midst  of  the  barren 
mountains  where  tigers  build  their  lairs.  The 
eternal  hills  swept  the  lowering,  clouded  skies, 
rolling  away  from  us,  silent,  shadow-filled.  A 
surging  love  of  the  very  soil  under  my  feet,  a 
clinging  to  the  earth  of  China,  overwhelmed  me. 
I  wished  to  kneel  down  and  kiss  that  beloved 
dust.  “Oh,  Chan-King,”  I  said,  shaking  with 
emotion,  “This  is  home!  I  wish  we  were  not 
leaving,  even  for  a  day!” 

“We  will  come  again  soon,”  he  said,  in  Chi¬ 
nese,  “and  we  will  live  here  when  we  are  old.” 

166 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 


That  evening  vve  sat  together  in  the  quiet  gar¬ 
den.  From  Mother’s  apartments  came  the  .  v > un  ' 
of  her  young  nephew’s  voice  as  he  chanted  his 
morrow’s  lessons.  We  heard  the  subdued  mer¬ 
riment  of  two  little  maids,  teasing  each  other  in 
the  hall  beyond.  Along  the  outer  path  a  sedan- 
chair  passed  with  rhythmic  sway,  the  bamboo 
supports  creaking  a  soft  accompaniment  to  the 
pad-pad  of  the  bearers’  sandaled  feet. 

From  varying  distances  came  the  clang  of  a 
brass  gong,  shuddering  on  the  stillness,  the  stac¬ 
cato  sound  of  slender  bamboo  sticks  shaken  to¬ 
gether  in  a  cylindrical  box,  the  measured  beat  of 
a  small  drum-rattle,  as  the  different  street  vend¬ 
ers  announced  their  wares.  Over  the  hills,  now 
purple  in  twilight,  the  round  moon  swung  leis¬ 
urely  into  the  violet  sky.  Strange  breaths  of  in¬ 
cense  wafted  about  us.  The  sea-breeze  stirred 
the  branches  of  a  nearby  dragon’s-eye  tree,  where 
the  ripening  fruit-balls  tapped  gently  against 
each  other  like  little  swaying  lanterns.  For  long 

moments  we  sat  in  silence,  with  clasped  hands. 

167 


MY  CHINESE  MARRIAGE 


Out  of  that  silence  my  husband  spoke  softly, 
words  I  had  long  yearned  to  hear:  “Absence, 
Margaret,  teaches  many  things.  Once  it  showed 
you  your  own  heart.  This  time  it  has  taught  me 
to  believe  with  you  in  the  immortality  of  love  like 
ours.  Physically,  we  may  be  separated  at  times, 
but  mentally,  spiritually,  you  and  I  are  one  for 
all  eternity.” 

The  moon  rose  higher,  golden,  perfect,  even  as 
our  love. 

A  few  days  later,  we  sailed  for  America.  The 
rest  may  be  told  in  a  few  words,  for  after  all,  no 
words  could  adequately  tell  it.  A  week  after 
our  arrival  in  America,  Chan-King  was  stricken 
with  influenza.  For  several  years  he  had  been  in 
the  shadow  of  a  slow  illness,  but  with  stout  re¬ 
sistance  and  such  buoyant  recurring  periods  of 
good  health  that  we  had  for  a  time  almost  for¬ 
gotten  that  early  and  sinister  threat.  But  those 
years  of  struggle  were  all  thrown  into  the  balance 
against  him  when  the  decisive  hour  came.  After 

six  days,  he  died.  Quietly,  with  terrible  implac- 

168 


THE  ETERNAL  HILLS 

ability,  death  closed  over  him.  We  feared  a 
sudden  end,  it  is  true,  but  were  still  incredulous 
of  such  a  calamity.  We  gave  each  other  what  as¬ 
surance  we  could:  our  ultimate  farewells  were 
simple  renewals  of  faith,  a  firmer  tightening  of 
our  hands  for  our  walk  in  darkness.  “Of  all  the 
world,  you  are  my  love,”  he  said,  many  times. 
“More  than  any  one  else  you  have  understood, 
you  have  been  unfailing — you  have  been  my 
wife.”  And  almost  as  he  spoke,  my  arms  held  no 
longer  my  living  beloved,  but  only  the  clay  where 
his  spirit  had  been  and  would  come  no  more. 

So,  by  the  visible  evidences,  my  history  is  fin¬ 
ished.  But  it  has  begun  anew  for  me,  not  as  I 
wished,  not  as  I  hoped,  but  on  a  level  that  I  can 
endure.  For  I  have  my  children  and  my  mem¬ 
ories  and  my  home  in  China,  which  waits  with 
the  gentle  healing  of  sight  and  sound  and  place 
.  .  .  and  I  have  learned  that  in  love,  and  only 
in  love,  we  can  wring  spiritual  victory  out  of  this 
defeat  of  the  body. 


169 


Date  Due 

MAR  31 ’4 

sr 

AP«-7*S 

Apr,  ©  - 

?9 

FORM  335  40 M  9-42 


